It is common for website owners to seek information on their site’s SEO performance. A helpful tool for this is SEMrush. However, there may be times when you need to pause the crawling of the SEMrush bot on your site due to server load problems or privacy issues. This article will provide instructions on how to stop the SEMrush Bot efficiently.
What is SEMrush Bot?
The SEMrush bot is a software application that crawls and indexes websites on the internet. It collects data for SEMrush’s SEO and content tools and this data can be quite beneficial when you’re trying to improve your website’s SEO.
How To Block SEMrush Bot
You can block the SEMrush bot from crawling your website by modifying your site’s robots.txt file. Here’s how:
Step 1: Locate your robots.txt file
The robots.txt file is usually found in your website’s root directory. It’s commonly located at www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt.
Step 2: Add Disallow Rules
In your robots.txt file, add the following lines to disallow SEMrush bot from crawling your website:
User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: SemrushBot-SA
Disallow: /
“User-agent: SemrushBot” and “User-agent: SemrushBot-SA” target the two versions of the SEMrush bot, and “Disallow: /” forbids them from accessing any part of your site.
Step 3: Save Changes
After adding the required disallow rules, save your robots.txt file. The changes will take effect immediately, preventing SEMrush bot from crawling your site from that point onward.
Conclusion
While SEMrush bot can provide useful SEO insights about your website, there are times when its activities might be unwanted. By following the steps outlined in this post, you can effectively stop SEMrush bot from crawling your website. Always remember to handle your robots.txt file with caution, as incorrect directives can lead to unwanted SEO consequences.