Before you make any changes to WordPress, you should know both the technical process and the SEO effects of removing robots.txt. A lot of website owners delete or turn off the robots.txt file when they are fixing indexing problems, redesigning a website, moving hosting, or dealing with problems with SEO plugins. But if you don’t know how WordPress uses robots.txt, deleting it can cause problems with crawling and indexing. This article is based on real-world WordPress SEO experience and follows search engine rules to make sure it is safe to use.
What is Robots.txt in WordPress and how does it work?
The robots.txt file is a text file that is stored in the root directory of your site. It tells search engine crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot which parts of your site they can crawl and which ones they should stay away from.
Five Safe Ways to Get Rid of Robots.txt in WordPress
Here are the best and most common ways to remove or turn off robots.txt in WordPress.
1. Get rid of the real Robots.txt File from Hosting
You can delete a physical robots.txt file in your root directory using your hosting panel or FTP access.
How to Remove Robots.txt
Sign in to your hosting account
Open File Manager or use FTP to connect.
Go to the root folder, which is usually public_html.
Find the robots.txt file.
Remove the file
After you delete it, go back to your website at yourdomain.com/robots.txt and check it again.
WordPress is making a virtual robots.txt file if you can still see content.
This method only gets rid of the real robots.txt file, not the virtual one.
2. Use WordPress SEO plugins to Remove of Robots.txt
SEO plugins help many WordPress sites manage their robots.txt files. This is the safest way to get rid of robots.txt if you made it with a plugin.
Using Yoast SEO
Click on SEO, then Tools, and then File Editor.
Change or delete the content of the robots.txt file.
Keep changes
Use Rank Math To Remove Robots.txt
- Go to Rank Math and then General Settings.
- Go to the Edit robots.txt section.
- Get rid of custom rules
- Settings for saving
Using All in One SEO, go to the settings for Robots.txt
Turn off or delete custom settings
If a plugin made your robots.txt file, you can make sure there are no leftover instructions by removing it from the plugin’s settings.
This is a good way to go for people who are new to it or who aren’t very tech-savvy.
3. Turn off WordPress Virtual Robots.txt in Functions.php
You can stop WordPress from making a virtual robots.txt file by removing the default action with code. Put this code in the functions of your theme:
remove_action(‘do_robotstxt’, ‘do_robotstxt’);
Things to Think About
Before you change any code, make sure to back up your website.
Use a child theme to keep things safe during updates.
Your site could break if the code is wrong.
This method is best for developers or people who are very good at using WordPress.
4. Use .htaccess to remove or block Robots.txt
Blocking access to robots.txt through the .htaccess file is another advanced method.
You can add: Redirect 410 /robots.txt
or RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ – [F,L]
This makes the file return a status of 410 (Gone) or 403 (Forbidden).
How This Method Affects SEO
If you block robots.txt completely, search engines may get confused. You should only use it if you know everything there is to know about server-level settings and how crawlers work.
People usually use this method when setting up security or special servers.
5. Make an empty file to override Virtual Robots.txt
Making an empty robots.txt file and putting it in your root directory is another easy fix.
This takes the place of the virtual file in WordPress.
But an empty robots.txt file means that there are no crawl limits.
No rules that say “no”
No reference to a sitemap
This doesn’t technically delete robots.txt, but it does delete all crawl instructions.
People often use this method when they are moving or fixing things.
What Happens When You Take Out Robots.txt?
When you delete or turn off robots.txt, a number of things may happen:
Search engines might crawl more URLs.
- Pages that don’t need to be indexed could get indexed
- The use of crawl budgets may go up.
- There may be warnings in Google Search Console
You should keep an eye on:
- Reports on index coverage
- Search Console’s crawl stats
- Changes in organic traffic
It may take days or weeks for changes to show up in SEO results.
When You Shouldn’t Take Out Robots.txt
- If your website is already doing well in search engines, you shouldn’t remove robots.txt.
- You don’t fully understand how to manage crawls.
- You want to “clean up” files, but you don’t know why.
- Most of the time, it’s better to optimize robots.txt than to delete it completely.
Instead of getting rid of robots.txt, follow these SEO best practices.
When it comes to technical SEO, you rarely need to get rid of robots.txt completely.
It is usually better to optimize your robots.txt file than to delete it.
Here is a basic structure for a WordPress robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Don’t allow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
- This structure: Keeps admin directories safe
- Let’s run important scripts.
- Shows search engines where to find your sitemap
- Improving indexing speed by optimizing crawl directives doesn’t hurt SEO performance.
Things People Do Wrong When They Remove Robots.txt
Don’t make these common mistakes:
- blocking important landing pages
- Not allowing CSS or JavaScript files
- Not testing robots.txt after removing it
- Not paying attention to Search Console warnings
- Unintentionally taking out sitemap references
- Always check changes by going to yourdomain.com/robots.txt.
- And looking at reports in Google Search Console.
Expert Advice on Deleting Robots.txt
Based on real-world SEO audits and managing WordPress sites, most robots.txt issues are caused by plugins that aren’t set up correctly.
- Very few cases need to be completely removed.
- Crawl optimization works better when deleting files.
Search engines are very smart these days. Limiting crawling too much can be bad, but getting rid of all guidance can also make things less efficient.
Balanced technical SEO is very important.
Last thoughts: Is it a good idea to get rid of robots.txt?
There are five main ways to get rid of robots.txt in WordPress:
Remove the file from your computer
- Remove with SEO plugin
- Use code to turn off virtual robots.txt
- Block with .htaccess
- Use an empty file to override
But when it comes to SEO and running a website, optimization is usually better than removal.
Set a goal for yourself before you make any changes:
- Fix problems with indexing
- Make crawling more efficient
- Fix problems with plugins
- Get rid of old instructions
Technical SEO choices should always be made with long-term visibility in mind, not short-term testing. If you want to move up in the rankings, don’t just delete robots.txt. Instead, focus on structured content, internal linking, sitemap optimization, and crawl management. I can now make an optimized meta title, meta description, FAQ schema, and internal linking structure for this article to help it rank faster if you want.
