Will a robots.txt disallow apply to a 301ed URL?

[ecommercebc]

Hi there,

I have a robots.txt query which I haven't tried before and as we're nearing a big time for sales, I'm hesitant to just roll out to live!

Say for example, in my robots.txt I disallow the URL 'example1.html'.

In reality, 'example1.html' 301s/302s to 'example2.html'. Would the robots.txt directive also apply to 'example2.html' (disallow) or as it's a separate URL, would the directive be ignored as it's not valid?

I have a feeling that as it's a separate URL, the robots disallow directive won't apply. However, just thought I'd sense-check with the community.

[VERBInteractive]

I would have to agree, using your example if example1.html is blocked via robots.txt and when you visit it, it 301's to example2.html then it's not blocked by robots. as long as example2.html is discoverable via other indexed pages linking to it.

Does anyone else in the community have some insight they would like to share?

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

I would that the example2.html wouldn't be affected by the robots.txt as it can be that a bot will visit example2.html directly without visiting example1.html. Definitely as it could be that the page was picked up after the first time it visited example1.html.