{"id":1014,"date":"2024-10-09T13:28:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T13:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/?p=1014"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:52:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:52:49","slug":"google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Updates Robots.txt Rules: No More Crawl-Delay Confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google recently made a small but important change to its robots.txt documentation. The <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/crawling-indexing\/robots\/robots_txt#syntax\">update<\/a>, which added just a few words, has clarified how Google interacts with websites.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, Google stated that certain fields in <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/crawling-indexing\/robots\/intro\">robots.txt files<\/a>, like &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; are not supported. If you\u2019ve been using this directive to control how Google crawls your site, this change directly affects you.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1015\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields.jpg\" alt=\"Google's clarification on robots.txt files\" width=\"1792\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields.jpg 1792w, https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields-1024x585.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1792px) 100vw, 1792px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But what exactly does this mean for your website, and why did Google make this clarification now? Let\u2019s break it down.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-transparent ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\"><\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#what-did-google-change\" >What Did Google Change?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#why-did-google-make-this-clarification\" >Why Did Google Make This Clarification?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#why-should-you-care\" >Why Should You Care?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#what-about-other-search-engines\" >What About Other Search Engines?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#what-should-you-do-now\" >What Should You Do Now?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/#key-takeaways\" >Key Takeaways<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what-did-google-change\"><\/span><b>What Did Google Change?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google\u2019s update is short but significant. In their robots.txt documentation, they added the following clarification: &#8220;(other fields such as crawl-delay aren&#8217;t supported).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1016\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Google-Updates-Robots.txt-Rules.png\" alt=\"Google Updates Robots.txt Rules\" width=\"1483\" height=\"748\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Google-Updates-Robots.txt-Rules.png 1483w, https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Google-Updates-Robots.txt-Rules-300x151.png 300w, https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Google-Updates-Robots.txt-Rules-1024x516.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1483px) 100vw, 1483px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These eight words make it clear that if you\u2019re using unsupported fields like \u201ccrawl-delay,\u201d Google ignores them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/glenngabe\/status\/1843336321110311219?s=46\">https:\/\/x.com\/glenngabe\/status\/1843336321110311219?s=46<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For years, many website owners and SEO experts have included the &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; directive in their robots.txt files to manage how quickly search engines crawl their sites.\u00a0 The idea was to prevent search engines from overloading servers by pacing the number of requests they made.<\/p>\n<p>However, with this change, Google is setting the record straight. They do not recognize or use the &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; field, meaning it has had no effect on Google&#8217;s crawling behavior.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"why-did-google-make-this-clarification\"><\/span><b>Why Did Google Make This Clarification?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google made this update because many users were still asking questions about unsupported fields in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/blog\/robots-txt-guide\/\">robots.txt<\/a> files. Google wants to ensure everyone is on the same page: if a field isn&#8217;t explicitly listed in their documentation as supported, it won&#8217;t be used by Google.<\/p>\n<p>Jaskaran Singh, a Product Expert at Google, shared this information on LinkedIn, emphasizing that unsupported fields are ignored. He also provided some advice for website owners, recommending the use of comments (indicated by a &#8220;#&#8221; symbol) for better readability and ensuring paths in the robots.txt file start with a forward slash (&#8220;\/&#8221;) to avoid errors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/itsjaskrn_seo-robotstxt-crawling-activity-7249059533640114176-4rUe?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Embedded post\" src=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/embed\/feed\/update\/urn:li:share:7249059532599934976\" width=\"504\" height=\"945\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"why-should-you-care\"><\/span><b>Why Should You Care?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been using &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; or any other unsupported field to control how Google crawls your site, it hasn\u2019t been doing anything. Google has been crawling your site at its own pace, regardless of what your robots.txt file says.<\/p>\n<p>For some websites, this may not be a big deal. But for others\u2014especially those with limited server resources\u2014it could mean Google\u2019s crawlers are overwhelming your site, causing slowdowns or even crashes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If Google\u2019s bots are using up your server&#8217;s resources, legitimate users might experience longer load times, hurting user experience and potentially damaging your search rankings.<\/p>\n<p>Slower websites tend to rank lower in search results, so this clarification from Google could indirectly impact your SEO if your site is struggling to handle the load from Google&#8217;s crawlers.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what-about-other-search-engines\"><\/span><b>What About Other Search Engines?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>While Google doesn\u2019t recognize &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; other search engines do. Bing, for instance, still supports the &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; directive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re targeting users primarily using Bing or other search engines, &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; might still work.<\/p>\n<p>However, this introduces a consistency issue. If you want to control how all search engines crawl your site, you must find a different solution for Google.<\/p>\n<p>This issue with varying crawler behaviors recently made headlines when<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/why-reddit-blocked-bing-crawlers-431\/\"> Reddit blocked Bing&#8217;s crawlers<\/a>. Reddit took action to prevent Bing from crawling its content, highlighting how different platforms might choose to manage or block specific crawlers depending on their own concerns and policies.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what-should-you-do-now\"><\/span><b>What Should You Do Now?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you\u2019ve been using unsupported fields like &#8220;crawl-delay&#8221; in your robots.txt file, now is the time to act. Here\u2019s what you can do:<\/p>\n<p><b>Check Your robots.txt File:<\/b> Open your robots.txt file and review it for unsupported fields like &#8220;crawl-delay.&#8221; If you see any, remove them.<\/p>\n<p><b>Use Supported Directives Only:<\/b> Google supports certain fields in the robots.txt file, such as \u201cDisallow\u201d (to block access to specific parts of your site), \u201cAllow\u201d (to permit access to specific areas), and \u201cSitemap\u201d (to direct bots to your sitemap). Make sure you\u2019re using only these supported directives.<\/p>\n<p><b>Optimize Your Server:<\/b> If your main concern was preventing Google from overloading your server, consider optimizing your server to handle the traffic. You can also adjust your crawl rate in Google Search Console.<\/p>\n<p><b>Test Your robots.txt File:<\/b> After making changes, test your robots.txt file to ensure it works correctly. Google\u2019s Search Console offers a tool to validate your robots.txt file and ensure it\u2019s guiding crawlers as expected.<\/p>\n<p><b>Monitor Google\u2019s Crawling Activity:<\/b> Keep an eye on how Google is crawling your site. Use Google Search Console\u2019s Crawl Stats report to see how often Googlebot visits your site and whether it\u2019s causing any issues.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"key-takeaways\"><\/span><b>Key Takeaways<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">Google updated its robots.txt documentation to clarify that unsupported fields, like &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; are ignored.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">If you&#8217;re using unsupported fields like &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; they haven\u2019t been working for Google crawlers all along. Other search engines, like Bing, still recognize &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; so your robots.txt file might still work for them.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">To ensure your site is crawled correctly, stick to supported directives like \u201cDisallow,\u201d \u201cAllow,\u201d and \u201cSitemap\u201d in your robots.txt file.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google recently made a small but important change to its robots.txt documentation. The update, which added just a few words, has clarified how Google interacts with websites.\u00a0 Specifically, Google stated that certain fields in robots.txt files, like &#8220;crawl-delay,&#8221; are not supported. If you\u2019ve been using this directive to control how Google crawls your site, this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Google Updates Robots.txt Rules: No More Crawl-Delay Confusion - Stan Ventures<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Google clarified that fields like &quot;crawl-delay&quot; in robots.txt aren\u2019t supported. Learn how this affects your site.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google Updates Robots.txt Rules: No More Crawl-Delay Confusion - Stan Ventures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Google clarified that fields like &quot;crawl-delay&quot; in robots.txt aren\u2019t supported. Learn how this affects your site.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stan Ventures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StanVentures\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-09T13:28:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-25T18:52:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stanventures.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1792\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Zulekha\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@stanventures\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@stanventures\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Zulekha\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Zulekha\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/fa7eddd27331b508c39dfd5ec581c0d1\"},\"headline\":\"Google Updates Robots.txt Rules: No More Crawl-Delay Confusion\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-09T13:28:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-25T18:52:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":864,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/10\\\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"SEO\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/\",\"name\":\"Google Updates Robots.txt Rules: No More Crawl-Delay Confusion - Stan Ventures\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/google-updates-robots-txt-rules-no-more-crawl-delay-confusion-1014\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.stanventures.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/10\\\/Googles-clarification-on-robots.txt-fields.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-09T13:28:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-25T18:52:49+00:00\",\"description\":\"Google clarified that fields like \\\"crawl-delay\\\" in robots.txt aren\u2019t supported. 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