Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance

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.

AI crawler controls by edition

The Free edition lets site owners choose a basic global policy for AI search and discovery crawlers: allow or block. AI training crawlers remain separated from AI search crawlers, so a site can block training use while still allowing AI-powered search and answer discovery.

The Pro and Premium editions add advanced controls, including per-bot AI crawler rules, custom user agents, AI usage signals, llms.txt, and additional machine-readable governance files.

Better Robots.txt separates AI-related agents into three practical families:

• AI training crawlers, such as GPTBot, Google-Extended, and ClaudeBot.
• AI search and discovery crawlers, such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, and Claude-SearchBot.
• User-action fetchers, such as ChatGPT-User, Perplexity-User, and Claude-User.

User-action fetchers are triggered by user requests. Depending on the provider, robots.txt may not apply to those fetches in the same way as it applies to automated crawlers. For stronger enforcement, combine robots.txt with server logs, WAF rules, provider verification, or IP-based controls where available.

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.