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src/robots.txt.ejs: remove blank line comments - #5990

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alanorth:robots-comments
Jul 24, 2026
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src/robots.txt.ejs: remove blank line comments#5990
tdonohue merged 1 commit into
DSpace:mainfrom
alanorth:robots-comments

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@alanorth

@alanorth alanorth commented Jul 24, 2026

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Description

Remove comment about blank lines not being allowed. This may have been true at one point, but recent verification with Google's own robotstxt tool shows no difference in parsing with or without the blank lines. Also, the RFC for the Robots Exclusion Protocol does not mention such a limitation.

Note: the SEO pages on the wiki need to be updated as well, as they contain a snippet from our robots.txt with this comment.

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Please add a more detailed description of the changes made by your PR. At a minimum, providing a bulleted list of changes in your PR is helpful to reviewers.

List of changes in this PR:

  • First, remove comment about blank lines not being allowed
  • Second, update formatting to remove empty comments

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As this is a very minor pull request, the best way to test it is to review the changes and review the linked documentation to see if it makes sense.

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Remove comment about blank lines not being allowed. This may have
been true at one point, but recent verification with Google's own
robotstxt tool shows no difference in parsing with or without the
blank lines. Also, the RFC for the Robots Exclusion Protocol does
not mention such a limitation.

See: https://github.com/google/robotstxt
See: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html
@alanorth alanorth added component: SEO Search Engine Optimization needs documentation PR is missing documentation. All new features and config changes require documentation. port to dspace-8_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-8_x` branch for next bug-fix release port to dspace-9_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-9_x` branch for next bug-fix release port to dspace-10_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-10_x` branch for next bug-fix release labels Jul 24, 2026
@tdonohue tdonohue added this to the 11.0 milestone Jul 24, 2026
@tdonohue tdonohue moved this to 👀 Under Review in DSpace 11.0 Release Jul 24, 2026
@tdonohue
tdonohue self-requested a review July 24, 2026 12:22

@tdonohue tdonohue left a comment

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👍 Thanks @alanorth ! This looks good to me.

@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this from 👀 Under Review to 👍 Reviewer Approved in DSpace 11.0 Release Jul 24, 2026
@tdonohue
tdonohue merged commit 3814a34 into DSpace:main Jul 24, 2026
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@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this from 👍 Reviewer Approved to ✅ Done in DSpace 11.0 Release Jul 24, 2026
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Successfully created backport PR for dspace-8_x:

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Successfully created backport PR for dspace-9_x:

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Successfully created backport PR for dspace-10_x:

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I've updated our SEO Docs for 10.x/9.x/8.x to remove the guidelines about blank lines. See for example: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/spaces/DSDOC10x/pages/408945748/Search+Engine+Optimization#SearchEngineOptimization-Createagoodrobots.txt

@tdonohue tdonohue removed needs documentation PR is missing documentation. All new features and config changes require documentation. port to dspace-8_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-8_x` branch for next bug-fix release port to dspace-9_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-9_x` branch for next bug-fix release port to dspace-10_x This PR needs to be ported to `dspace-10_x` branch for next bug-fix release labels Jul 24, 2026
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