# Robots.txt Auditor & Sitemap Finder (`andok/robotstxt-auditor`) Actor

Scan robots.txt files in bulk to extract sitemap URLs and verify crawler directives for technical SEO compliance.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/andok/robotstxt-auditor.md
- **Developed by:** [Andok](https://apify.com/andok) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.47 / 1,000 domain auditeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Robots.txt Auditor

Audit robots.txt files across hundreds of domains to catch crawl-blocking mistakes that silently hurt SEO. A single misconfigured `Disallow` rule can deindex entire site sections — this actor fetches, parses, and reports on every robots.txt in bulk. Run it against your own sites or competitor domains to extract sitemap declarations, user-agent rules, and crawl directives in one pass.

### Features

- **Bulk auditing** — process hundreds of domains in a single run with configurable concurrency
- **Sitemap discovery** — extracts all `Sitemap:` directives declared in each robots.txt
- **User-agent analysis** — identifies every crawler-specific rule block in the file
- **Status reporting** — captures HTTP status codes, file size, and fetch errors
- **Flexible input** — accepts full URLs or bare domains (auto-resolves to `/robots.txt`)
- **Error resilience** — reports failures per domain without stopping the run
- **Timestamp tracking** — records when each domain was checked for audit trails

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `urls` | `array` | Yes | — | List of URLs or domains to audit (e.g. `example.com` or `https://example.com`) |
| `url` | `string` | No | — | Single URL for backward compatibility. Merged into `urls` if both are provided. |
| `timeoutSeconds` | `integer` | No | `15` | HTTP timeout in seconds for each robots.txt fetch |
| `concurrency` | `integer` | No | `10` | Number of domains to process in parallel (1-50) |

#### Input Example

```json
{
    "urls": ["https://crawlee.dev", "https://apify.com", "https://example.com"],
    "timeoutSeconds": 15,
    "concurrency": 10
}
```

### Output

Each domain produces one dataset item with the robots.txt status, discovered sitemaps, and user-agent blocks.

- `inputUrl` (`string`) — the original URL or domain you provided
- `robotsUrl` (`string | null`) — the resolved robots.txt URL
- `status` (`number | null`) — HTTP status code (200, 404, etc.)
- `contentLength` (`number`) — file size in bytes
- `sitemapCount` (`number`) — number of `Sitemap:` directives found
- `sitemaps` (`string[]`) — list of sitemap URLs declared in the file
- `userAgents` (`string[]`) — list of unique `User-agent` values
- `error` (`string | null`) — error message if the fetch failed
- `checkedAt` (`string`) — ISO timestamp of when the check ran

#### Output Example

```json
{
    "inputUrl": "https://crawlee.dev",
    "robotsUrl": "https://crawlee.dev/robots.txt",
    "status": 200,
    "contentLength": 342,
    "sitemapCount": 2,
    "sitemaps": [
        "https://crawlee.dev/sitemap.xml",
        "https://crawlee.dev/sitemap-blog.xml"
    ],
    "userAgents": ["*", "Googlebot", "AhrefsBot"],
    "error": null,
    "checkedAt": "2025-11-20T14:30:00.000Z"
}
```

### Pricing

| Event | Cost |
|-------|------|
| Domain Audited | $0.001 per domain |

You are charged per domain audited. Platform usage fees apply separately.

### Use Cases

- **SEO audits** — check whether robots.txt accidentally blocks important pages or crawlers
- **Sitemap discovery** — extract all declared sitemap URLs across a portfolio of domains
- **Competitor intelligence** — see which crawlers competitors specifically block or allow
- **Migration validation** — verify robots.txt is correctly configured after a domain migration
- **Agency reporting** — audit robots.txt across all client domains in a single scheduled run

### Related Actors

| Actor | What it adds |
|-------|-------------|
| [XML Sitemap URL Extractor](https://apify.com/andok/sitemap-extractor) | Extract all URLs from the sitemaps discovered in robots.txt |
| [Broken Links Checker](https://apify.com/andok/broken-links-checker) | Crawl your site to find broken links that robots.txt might be masking |
| [Tech Stack Analyzer](https://apify.com/andok/tech-stack-analyzer) | Detect the CMS and frameworks behind the domains you audit |

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

List of URLs or bare domains to audit. Each entry is resolved to its /robots.txt path automatically. Accepts formats like example.com or https://example.com.

## `url` (type: `string`):

A single URL or domain for backward compatibility. If both this and 'URLs / Domains' are provided, this is merged into the list.

## `timeoutSeconds` (type: `integer`):

HTTP timeout in seconds for fetching each domain's robots.txt file. Increase for slow-responding servers.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Number of domains to process in parallel. Higher values speed up large batches but use more memory.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://crawlee.dev"
  ],
  "timeoutSeconds": 15,
  "concurrency": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `resultsCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `run` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://crawlee.dev"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("andok/robotstxt-auditor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "urls": ["https://crawlee.dev"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("andok/robotstxt-auditor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://crawlee.dev"
  ]
}' |
apify call andok/robotstxt-auditor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,andok/robotstxt-auditor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/bnr3voxtDbdm8PHEO/builds/8XGfnrK693ecNi8S2/openapi.json