URL: /rules/crawl/robots-meta-conflict

---
title: "Robots Meta Conflict"
description: "Detects conflicts between robots meta tags and robots.txt"
---

Detects conflicts between robots meta tags and robots.txt

| | |
|---|---|
| **Rule ID** | `crawl/robots-meta-conflict` |
| **Category** | [Crawlability](/rules/crawl) |
| **Scope** | Site-wide |
| **Severity** | warning |
| **Weight** | 5/10 |

## Solution

Robots.txt and robots meta tags should work together, not conflict. If robots.txt blocks a URL, search engines won't see the meta robots tag at all. Common conflicts: blocking a page in robots.txt while trying to noindex it (unnecessary), or allowing in robots.txt but noindexing (works but confusing). For noindex, let the page be crawled so the directive is seen. For blocked pages, robots.txt alone is sufficient.

## Enable / Disable

### Disable this rule

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
disable = ["crawl/robots-meta-conflict"]
```

### Disable all Crawlability rules

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
disable = ["crawl/*"]
```

### Enable only this rule

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
enable = ["crawl/robots-meta-conflict"]
disable = ["*"]
```