robots.txt template

Hugo can generate a customized robots.txt in the same way as any other template.

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

enableRobotsTXT: true

enableRobotsTXT = true

{
   "enableRobotsTXT": true
}

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

User-agent: *

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

Override the embedded template

To override the embedded template, create a layouts/robots.txt file in your project or in a module.

In a multilingual project with a single host, Hugo generates one robots.txt file in the root of the public directory. In a multihost project, Hugo generates a robots.txt file for each language. To use a different template for a language, include the language key in the file name, such as layouts/robots.de.txt.

Example

layouts/robots.txt

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 do not crawl any page on the site.

To create a robots.txt file without using a template:

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

Remember that Hugo copies everything in the static directory to the root of the public directory when you build your project.

Last updated: November 8, 2026 : content: Remove categories from front matter (1cc1dd83a)

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