Better Robots.txt replaces the default WordPress robots.txt workflow with a smarter, structured version you can configure and preview before publishing.
Instead of a blank textarea, you get a guided wizard with presets, plain-language explanations, and a final Review & Save step so you can inspect the generated robots.txt before it goes live.
Built for beginners and advanced users alike, Better Robots.txt helps you control how search engines, AI crawlers, SEO tools, archive bots, bad bots, social preview bots, and other automated agents interact with your site.
Trusted by thousands of WordPress sites, Better Robots.txt is designed for the AI era without resorting to hype, vague promises, or hidden rules.
Better Robots.txt is available in Free, Pro, and Premium editions. The free plugin covers the guided workflow and essential crawl control features, while Pro and Premium unlock additional governance, protection, and AI-ready modules. Some screenshots on the plugin page show features from all three editions.
A quick overview
Why Better Robots.txt is different
Most robots.txt plugins fall into one of three categories:
- Simple text editor
- Virtual robots.txt manager
- Single-purpose AI or policy add-on
Better Robots.txt goes further.
It gives you a complete, guided crawl control workflow so you can:
- Choose a preset that matches your goals
- Control major crawler categories without writing everything by hand
- Keep core WordPress protection rules visible and editable
- Clean up low-value crawl paths that waste crawl budget
- Generate a cleaner robots.txt output
- Preview the final result before saving
What you can control
Better Robots.txt helps you manage:
- Search engine visibility
- AI and LLM crawler behavior
- AI usage signals such as search, ai-input, and ai-train preferences
- SEO tool crawlers
- Bad bots and abusive crawlers
- Archive and Wayback access
- Feed crawlers and crawl traps
- WooCommerce crawl cleanup
- CSS, JavaScript, and image crawling rules
- Social media preview crawlers
- ads.txt and app-ads.txt allowance
- llms.txt generation
- Advanced directives such as crawl-delay and custom rules
- Final review before publishing
Editions
Better Robots.txt is available in three editions:
- Free – Includes the guided setup, the Essential preset, core crawl control features, and the final Review & Save workflow.
- Pro – Adds more advanced governance and protection modules, including additional AI, crawler, and cleanup controls.
- Premium – Unlocks the most restrictive and advanced protection options, including the Fortress preset and additional high-control modules.
Some options shown in the interface are marked Free, Pro, or Premium so users can immediately understand which modules belong to each edition.
Presets
Setup starts with four modes:
- Essential – A clean, practical configuration for most websites that want a better robots.txt without complexity.
- AI-First – For publishers and content sites that want AI-ready governance without shutting down discovery.
- Fortress – For websites that want stronger protection against scraping, archive capture, and unnecessary crawl activity.
- Custom – For users who prefer to configure each module manually.
For many sites, one preset plus a quick review is enough.
Built for beginners and experts
Beginners get:
- A guided setup instead of a raw robots.txt box
- Preset-based configuration
- Plain-language explanations for important choices
- A safer workflow with a final preview step
Advanced users get:
- Editable core WordPress protection rules
- Fine-grained crawler controls by category
- WooCommerce-oriented cleanup options
- Consolidated output options
- Advanced directives and custom rules
- A final output they can inspect before publishing
AI-ready, without hype
Better Robots.txt includes features for modern AI-related crawl governance, including:
- AI crawler handling
- Optional llms.txt support
- AI usage signals for compliant systems
- Optional machine-readable governance signals for advanced use cases
These features help you express how you want automated systems to use your content.
However, Better Robots.txt does not claim to control AI by force. Like robots.txt itself, these signals are most useful with compliant systems and good-faith crawlers.
What Better Robots.txt is
Better Robots.txt is:
- A robots.txt governance plugin for WordPress
- A guided configuration workflow instead of a raw text editor
- A crawl control layer to reduce wasteful crawling
- A practical bridge between SEO, crawl hygiene, and AI-era policy signaling
- A way to keep your crawl policy clearer for humans and machines
Technical reference for advanced users: Better Robots.txt also maintains a public GitHub repository with product definition, governance notes, and machine-readable artefacts.
What Better Robots.txt is not
Better Robots.txt is not:
- A firewall or Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- An anti-scraping enforcement engine
- A legal compliance engine
- A guarantee that every bot will obey your rules
- A replacement for server-level security or access control
It helps you publish a clearer crawl policy.
It does not replace infrastructure-level protection.
Typical use cases
Use Better Robots.txt if you want to:
- Clean up a weak or noisy default robots.txt
- Reduce crawl waste on WordPress or WooCommerce
- Keep major search engines allowed while restricting other bots
- Control whether archive bots can snapshot your site
- Publish AI usage preferences more clearly
- Keep social preview bots allowed while limiting scrapers
- Review the final file before making it live
Key Features
- Guided step-by-step wizard
- Preset-based setup: Essential, AI-First, Fortress, Custom
- Search engine visibility controls
- AI and LLM crawler governance
- AI usage signals support
- SEO tool crawler controls
- Bad bot and abusive crawler options
- Archive and Wayback access controls
- Spam, feed, and crawl trap cleanup
- WooCommerce crawl cleanup options
- CSS, JavaScript, and image crawling rules
- Social media preview crawler controls
- ads.txt and app-ads.txt allowance
- Optional llms.txt generation
- Consolidated output option
- Core WordPress protection rules remain visible and editable
- Final Review & Save preview screen
About the publisher
Better Robots.txt is developed and maintained by Pagup, a digital readability firm based in Quebec, Canada. Pagup helps organizations become correctly understood by search engines, generative AI systems, and autonomous agents.
The robots.txt file is the first surface that AI crawlers read when they discover a site. A well-structured robots.txt that references governance files such as llms.txt, ai-manifest.json, and interpretation policies helps AI systems understand your site faster and more accurately.
Better Robots.txt is one component of a broader digital readability practice that includes semantic content architecture, AI governance and machine readability, and interpretive SEO.
Part of the Pagup ecosystem
- pagup.com — Digital readability firm. Diagnostic, semantic architecture, AI governance.
- gautierdorval.com — Doctrine, canonical definitions, interpretive governance research.
- interpretive-governance.org — Formal versioned standard for interpretive governance.
- better-robots.com — Documentation and resources for Better Robots.txt.
