1 March DNN Summit Session: Multi-Site DNN Instances and Robots.txt March 1, 2021By Will Strohl | 2 MIN READ Our first session at DNN Summit 2021 this year was a short introduction to search engine optimization (SEO) and then a deeper dive on how to manage the Robots.txt file in your DNN website. Management of this critical SEO file is easier than ever on DNN 9.8 and newer. This blog post is a follow-up to provide resources for the event attendees. In short, you now can manage your robots.txt file(s) directly within DNN itself while logged in as a superuser, and you should review this file regularly, and especially before you launch a new website. Slide Deck DNN Summit: Robots.txt & Multi-Site DNN Instances from Will Strohl Multi-Site Support in DNN In order to support multiple sites that each have their own robots.txt file, leave the default one the way it is already, for your primary website. Then, add a new one for each additional site you wish to support. Usually, this will be a copy of the original robots.txt, but the file name will be preceded by the domain. For example, if the additional site is example.com, then the new robots.txt file for that site will simply be example.com.robots.txt, instead of robots.txt. Now, when you're logged in as a superuser, you can edit any of the robots.txt files that are found in the root of the website folder, using the existing Config Manager feature. Code Sample In order to get this fully working when requested by search engines and other bots, you'll need to first be sure the IIS redirect module is installed, then add redirects for each like you see in the example below. You'll want to put the redirects inside of the <system.webServer> section. <rewrite> <rules> <rule name="Robots.txt: Demo Site 1" stopProcessing="true"> <match url=".+" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="localhost.demo1" /> <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" pattern="robots.txt" /> </conditions> <action type="Rewrite" url="localhost.demo1.{C:0}" logRewrittenUrl="true" /> </rule> <rule name="Robots.txt: Demo Site 2" stopProcessing="true"> <match url=".+" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="localhost.demo2" /> <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" pattern="robots.txt" /> </conditions> <action type="Rewrite" url="localhost.demo2.{C:0}" logRewrittenUrl="true" /> </rule> <rule name="Robots.txt: Demo Site 3" stopProcessing="true"> <match url=".+" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="localhost.demo3" /> <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" pattern="robots.txt" /> </conditions> <action type="Rewrite" url="localhost.demo3.{C:0}" logRewrittenUrl="true" /> </rule> </rules> </rewrite> Keeping the example code above in mind, now, when you are on the localhost.demo website and ask for the robots.txt file, you'll see the specific file that's only maintained for that website. Let's Chat! We'd love to work with you. Let's talk about how. Contact Us March 1, 2021By Will Strohl Business, General, Technology Best Practices, CMS, DNN, DNNCMS, Marketing, SEO About the Author Will Strohl Founder & CEO Upendo Ventures Overall, Will has nearly 20 years of experience helping website owners become more successful in all areas, including mentoring, website development, marketing, strategy, e-commerce, and more. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Related Posts DNN Summit Session: DNN Upgrades Made Simple Our second and final session at DNN Summit 2021 was about upgrading DNN. After having upgraded literally thousands of DNN websites over the past 18 years, this session is the culmination of everything I've learned over that period of time. Most of the issues we run into tend to be completely avoidable. Proud Sponsor of DNN Summit 2020 in Orlando, FL I've been using DNN nearly since it launched, which is nearly 17 years ago now. Among my DNN accomplishments is founding the original community-based DNN conference, originally named Day of DotNetNuke and first hosted in Tampa, FL. That was 10 years ago. Things have come full circle now that the DNN Summit conference is going back to Orlando. It's with great pride that I'm announcing we're silver sponsors of DNN Summit 2020. Upendo Ventures Will Be at DNN Summit 2018 in February DNN Summit has a long history. It’s grown a lot since 2009, when I first founded the Day of DotNetNuke conference. Back then, I used to speak at pretty much every user group and conference I could get to. I love public speaking. I love helping people learn something new – or better – helping inspire people to try something they may have never before considered. I took about 2 years off from speaking, and now… I’m back! I’ll be speaking at DNN Summit! DNN Summit 2020 Contest Winner We try to have a contest for any event we're involved in. It helps add another level of fun, and in the case of DNN, it helps us to drive some more community engagement. We're here to not only help promote the software that still makes up the core of our business, but also to keep things fun and light-hearted. How to Do a Technical SEO Audit (Without the Tech Headache) If your website isn’t showing up the way it should, the problem may be the “behind‑the‑scenes” setup. This guide explains—in plain English—how to check the most important technical SEO items so more customers can find you. DNN-Connect 2019 Recap: The Next Phase of Our Journey I’m not yet out of Europe. I’m sitting in my hotel room in Paris, enjoying the sounds of the city, just blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. I spent about an hour last night after midnight, exploring the city. I can’t help but reflect on what DNN has done for my life. It’s quite literally changed it, for the better, time and time again. As a minor and superficial example, over 15 years ago when I started with it, I never thought it would lead me to Switzerland or France, much less riding a scooter around the Eiffel Tower after midnight. I’ve come a long way over the years, and so has our community. We’ve all grown, and this conference marked an important new milestone in our mutual journey.