Robots.txt and Why It’s Important for Car, Leisure Vehicle & Motorcycle Dealer SEO
The robots.txt file tells search engines which URLs they are allowed to access on your site. If it’s incorrectly configured, you could unintentionally block valuable content from appearing in search results.
Major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo regularly check this file for instructions on how to crawl your website. Without one, they will attempt to crawl the entire site — including private or low-value areas that you might prefer to keep out of search results.
Most reputable search engines follow robots.txt directives, but it’s worth noting that they are guidelines rather than enforceable rules — meaning some crawlers may ignore them entirely.
Is robots.txt Important for SEO?
The importance of robots.txt depends on the size and structure of your site:
- Small sites (under 20 pages) – If you want all pages crawled and indexed, you don’t strictly need a robots.txt file, although having one for clarity is still considered best practice.
- Larger sites – If you have hundreds of pages, managing your crawl budget becomes important. Disallowing low-value or duplicate pages ensures that search engines focus on crawling your most important pages first.
- Sensitive content – If certain folders or files should not appear in search results, robots.txt is a useful first line of defence (although not a security measure in itself).
In short, for most dealer websites — especially those with extensive stock listings, archives, or multiple content sections — a properly configured robots.txt file is an important part of SEO strategy.
Robots.txt Best Practice Checklist
- Allow crawling of all high-value, indexable pages (e.g. stock listings, main landing pages).
- Disallow low-value pages such as admin areas, internal search results, or duplicate content.
- List your XML sitemap location for easier discovery by search engines.
- Review and update robots.txt whenever site structure changes.
- Test robots.txt changes using Google Search Console’s testing tool before going live.