robots.txt template

To generate a robots.txt file from a template, change your project configuration:

{{< code-toggle file=hugo >}} enableRobotsTXT = true {{< /code-toggle >}}

By default, Hugo generates robots.txt using an embedded template.

User-agent: *

Search engines that honor the Robots Exclusion Protocol will interpret this as permission to crawl everything on the site.

robots.txt template lookup order

You may overwrite the internal template with a custom template. Hugo selects the template using this lookup order:

1. /layouts/robots.txt
2. /themes/<THEME>/layouts/robots.txt

robots.txt template example

User-agent: *
{{ range .Pages }}
Disallow: {{ .RelPermalink }}
{{ end }}

This template creates a robots.txt file with a Disallow directive for each page on the site. Search engines that honor the Robots Exclusion Protocol will not crawl any page on the site.

[!note] To create a robots.txt file without using a template:

1. Set enableRobotsTXT to false in your project configuration.
2. Create a robots.txt file in the static directory.

Remember that Hugo copies everything in the static director to the root of publishDir (typically public) when you build your project.