# Begin robots.txt file
#/-----------------------------------------------\
#| In single portal/domain situations, uncomment the sitemap line and enter domain name
#\-----------------------------------------------/
#Sitemap: http://www.DomainNamehere.com/sitemap.aspx

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# NOTES
# - A crawler obeys ONLY the single most specific User-agent group that matches
#   it; groups are NOT merged. That is why the querystring/path Disallows below
#   are repeated inside every named group, not just under "*".
# - The Disallow: /*?...= rules stop crawlers from walking the Live Blog
#   archive/tag/category/paging permutations (Tag, BlogPage, Category, cid,
#   Month, Year), which were driving the SQL execution-timeout storm.
# - Pattern matching (* and the ? querystring) is honored by Google, Bing, and
#   most major crawlers; older/simple bots ignore it, so the worst offenders are
#   also given full Disallow: / blocks further down.
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------


User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /App_Browsers/
Disallow: /App_Code/
Disallow: /App_Data/
Disallow: /App_GlobalResources/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /Components/
Disallow: /Config/
Disallow: /contest/
Disallow: /controls/
Disallow: /DesktopModules/
Disallow: /Documentation/
Disallow: /HttpModules/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /Install/
Disallow: /js/
Disallow: /Portals/
Disallow: /Providers/
Disallow: /Resources/ContentRotator/
Disallow: /Resources/ControlPanel/
Disallow: /Resources/Dashboard/
Disallow: /Resources/FeedBrowser/
Disallow: /Resources/OpenForceAd/
Disallow: /Resources/Search/
Disallow: /Resources/Shared/
Disallow: /Resources/SkinWidgets/
Disallow: /Resources/TabStrip/
Disallow: /Resources/Widgets/
Disallow: /Activity-Feed/userId/	# Do not index user profiles
Disallow: /SearchResults.aspx
Disallow: /Search-Results.aspx
# --- Live Blog archive/tag/category crawl trap (added) ---
Disallow: /*?Tag=
Disallow: /*&Tag=
Disallow: /*?BlogPage=
Disallow: /*&BlogPage=
Disallow: /*?Category=
Disallow: /*&Category=
Disallow: /*?cid=
Disallow: /*&cid=
Disallow: /*?Month=
Disallow: /*&Month=
Disallow: /*?Year=
Disallow: /*&Year=


User-agent: msnbot
Crawl-delay: 120
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /App_Browsers/
Disallow: /App_Code/
Disallow: /App_Data/
Disallow: /App_GlobalResources/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /Components/
Disallow: /Config/
Disallow: /contest/
Disallow: /controls/
Disallow: /DesktopModules/
Disallow: /Documentation/
Disallow: /HttpModules/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /Install/
Disallow: /js/
Disallow: /Portals/
Disallow: /Providers/
Disallow: /Resources/ContentRotator/
Disallow: /Resources/ControlPanel/
Disallow: /Resources/Dashboard/
Disallow: /Resources/FeedBrowser/
Disallow: /Resources/OpenForceAd/
Disallow: /Resources/Search/
Disallow: /Resources/Shared/
Disallow: /Resources/SkinWidgets/
Disallow: /Resources/TabStrip/
Disallow: /Resources/Widgets/
Disallow: /Activity-Feed/userId/	# Do not index user profiles
Disallow: /SearchResults.aspx
Disallow: /Search-Results.aspx
Disallow: /*?Tag=
Disallow: /*&Tag=
Disallow: /*?BlogPage=
Disallow: /*&BlogPage=
Disallow: /*?Category=
Disallow: /*&Category=
Disallow: /*?cid=
Disallow: /*&cid=
Disallow: /*?Month=
Disallow: /*&Month=
Disallow: /*?Year=
Disallow: /*&Year=


User-agent: Slurp
Crawl-delay: 120
Disallow: /*/ctl/		# Slurp permits *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /App_Browsers/
Disallow: /App_Code/
Disallow: /App_Data/
Disallow: /App_GlobalResources/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /Components/
Disallow: /Config/
Disallow: /contest/
Disallow: /controls/
Disallow: /DesktopModules/
Disallow: /Documentation/
Disallow: /HttpModules/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /Install/
Disallow: /js/
Disallow: /Portals/
Disallow: /Providers/
Disallow: /Resources/ContentRotator/
Disallow: /Resources/ControlPanel/
Disallow: /Resources/Dashboard/
Disallow: /Resources/FeedBrowser/
Disallow: /Resources/OpenForceAd/
Disallow: /Resources/Search/
Disallow: /Resources/Shared/
Disallow: /Resources/SkinWidgets/
Disallow: /Resources/TabStrip/
Disallow: /Resources/Widgets/
Disallow: /Activity-Feed/userId/	# Do not index user profiles
Disallow: /SearchResults.aspx
Disallow: /Search-Results.aspx
Disallow: /*?Tag=
Disallow: /*&Tag=
Disallow: /*?BlogPage=
Disallow: /*&BlogPage=
Disallow: /*?Category=
Disallow: /*&Category=
Disallow: /*?cid=
Disallow: /*&cid=
Disallow: /*?Month=
Disallow: /*&Month=
Disallow: /*?Year=
Disallow: /*&Year=


User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*/ctl/		# Googlebot permits *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /App_Browsers/
Disallow: /App_Code/
Disallow: /App_Data/
Disallow: /App_GlobalResources/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /Components/
Disallow: /Config/
Disallow: /contest/
Disallow: /controls/
Disallow: /DesktopModules/
Disallow: /Documentation/
Disallow: /HttpModules/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /Install/
Disallow: /js/
Disallow: /Portals/
Disallow: /Providers/
Disallow: /Resources/ContentRotator/
Disallow: /Resources/ControlPanel/
Disallow: /Resources/Dashboard/
Disallow: /Resources/FeedBrowser/
Disallow: /Resources/OpenForceAd/
Disallow: /Resources/Search/
Disallow: /Resources/Shared/
Disallow: /Resources/SkinWidgets/
Disallow: /Resources/TabStrip/
Disallow: /Resources/Widgets/
Disallow: /Activity-Feed/userId/	# Do not index user profiles
Disallow: /SearchResults.aspx
Disallow: /Search-Results.aspx
Disallow: /*?Tag=
Disallow: /*&Tag=
Disallow: /*?BlogPage=
Disallow: /*&BlogPage=
Disallow: /*?Category=
Disallow: /*&Category=
Disallow: /*?cid=
Disallow: /*&cid=
Disallow: /*?Month=
Disallow: /*&Month=
Disallow: /*?Year=
Disallow: /*&Year=


User-agent: Yahoo Pipes 1.0
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /App_Browsers/
Disallow: /App_Code/
Disallow: /App_Data/
Disallow: /App_GlobalResources/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /Components/
Disallow: /Config/
Disallow: /contest/
Disallow: /controls/
Disallow: /DesktopModules/
Disallow: /Documentation/
Disallow: /HttpModules/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /Install/
Disallow: /js/
Disallow: /Portals/
Disallow: /Providers/
Disallow: /Resources/ContentRotator/
Disallow: /Resources/ControlPanel/
Disallow: /Resources/Dashboard/
Disallow: /Resources/FeedBrowser/
Disallow: /Resources/OpenForceAd/
Disallow: /Resources/Search/
Disallow: /Resources/Shared/
Disallow: /Resources/SkinWidgets/
Disallow: /Resources/TabStrip/
Disallow: /Resources/Widgets/
Disallow: /Activity-Feed/userId/	# Do not index user profiles
Disallow: /SearchResults.aspx
Disallow: /Search-Results.aspx
Disallow: /*?Tag=
Disallow: /*&Tag=
Disallow: /*?BlogPage=
Disallow: /*&BlogPage=
Disallow: /*?Category=
Disallow: /*&Category=
Disallow: /*?cid=
Disallow: /*&cid=
Disallow: /*?Month=
Disallow: /*&Month=
Disallow: /*?Year=
Disallow: /*&Year=


# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Aggressive / high-volume crawlers identified in the IIS exception log.
# These were generating the bulk of the archive-crawl load. They are blocked
# entirely. Bing/Google are NOT in this list (kept above for indexing) -- they
# only get the querystring archive blocks.
#
# NOTE: robots.txt is advisory. Bots that honor it (Bingbot, Googlebot, GPTBot,
# ClaudeBot, Amazonbot, Applebot, CCBot, PerplexityBot, the *Bot SEO crawlers)
# will obey. Bots that frequently ignore it (TikTokSpider/Bytespider, MJ12bot)
# should ALSO be blocked at IIS URL Rewrite or the firewall/CDN by user-agent
# or IP -- see the IIS rewrite snippet provided separately.
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: TikTokSpider
Disallow: /

User-agent: ttspider
Disallow: /

User-agent: MJ12bot
Disallow: /

User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: DataForSeoBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: PetalBot
Disallow: /

# End of robots.txt file