How to close a site from search robots and users?

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The main goal of SEO optimization is to get a page to the top of search results. This is preceded by the indexing process: search engine robots “study” the portal to determine how much the content corresponds to user requests and is useful to readers. However, in some cases, you need to know not only how to get into the index, but also how to close the site from crawlers and users. Let's figure out why this is necessary and how to hide your web resource.

Why close access?
Any site starts to appear in Google or Yandex search only after all pages on page seo service have been indexed by crawlers. In this case, the user sees only those sections of the portal that are open for search. If pages under development, temporary files or other information that for some reason is not hidden from prying eyes by webmasters are indexed, this not only reduces its usability, but also is guaranteed to lower the site's position in search results.

Sometimes a resource is hidden from search engines entirely: for example, the portal is under development, administrators are changing the design or updating the content. There are other reasons to close a site from indexing completely or to prohibit access to individual pages:

Compliance with uniqueness requirements. One of the crawlers' requirements is the uniqueness of the content posted on the portal. In the case where the site is tested on another domain, robots can perceive the main resource as a duplicate and automatically remove it from the search results.
Abundance of garbage. Pages under development, service files and other information that only the owner or administrator of the resource can understand significantly reduces the usability of the site. The less useful the portal is for visitors, the lower its position in the search results. Therefore, try to close sections intended for internal use from search engines.
Speeding up the indexing process. In SEO, there is a term called crawling budget. It refers to the volume of pages and sections that are subject to scanning by robots. This list may also include “garbage” pages, which means that robots will automatically lower your ranking in the search results, because they will also index sections that are useless to users. Before you close access to a site, make sure that the most useful parts of the resource will be indexed.
Redesign. If you decide to change the design or improve navigation, it is better to close the site for the duration of the "repair work" both from robots and from visitors. Portals are assessed, including by the usability parameter: if users spend a minimum of time on the pages, this point will definitely suffer. And therefore, the site's position in the search results will also decrease.
There are several ways to block your resource from crawler visits. To use them, you don’t have to be a webmaster or have advanced programming skills.

How to close a site from indexing: methods and instructions
Method 1. Hiding the portal using robots.txt
In fact, this configuration file contains the settings that crawlers rely on. Here, restrictions on indexing certain pages or sections are set, and other scanning parameters are also specified. If desired, you can hide PDF files, service pages, tag clouds, and even individual paragraphs in the text from users and robots! It is recommended to hide individual elements as well — captcha verification, contact forms, pop-up windows, and a shopping cart. From an SEO point of view, they are of no value, but scanning them will waste your crawling budget.

In order for crawlers to correctly recognize your instructions, the size of this file must not exceed 500 KB. In addition, it should be located in the root directory of the site, and the server on which your resource is located must respond to requests from robots with the HTTP code 200 OK.