RFC 9309 · PROPOSED STANDARD · 2022

Robots Exclusion Protocol

Overview

RFC 9309, “Robots Exclusion Protocol”, is a Proposed Standard document published in September 2022 by M. Koster, G. Illyes, H. Zeller, L. Sassman. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

This document specifies and extends the "Robots Exclusion Protocol" method originally defined by Martijn Koster in 1994 for service owners to control how content served by their services may be accessed, if at all, by automatic clients known as crawlers. Specifically, it adds definition language for the protocol, instructions for handling errors, and instructions for caching.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Proposed Standard” means

An entry-level standards-track specification: stable, peer-reviewed and a solid basis for implementation, though it may still evolve before becoming an Internet Standard.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 9309 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in HTML,TXT,PDF,XML.

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