Robots.txt is a crawler instruction file, not a way to hide private content. Review it for rules that accidentally block important public sections, scripts, or pages needed to understand the site. Check that the XML sitemap points to current canonical URLs and does not list private, redirected, or deleted pages. Use Search Console to inspect indexing and crawl reports because a public scan cannot see every Googlebot interaction.
AdSense review and Search indexing are related to a site’s public availability but are not identical. Google’s site-not-ready guidance explains readiness checks, while Google Search provides separate crawling and indexing documentation. Avoid claiming that inclusion in a sitemap guarantees AdSense approval or search indexing.
Example: A WordPress staging site was copied to production with a Disallow: / rule still active. Visitors can load the pages, but the robots file signals crawlers not to access them. Remove the staging rule only after confirming the production site is intended to be public, then check the file and Search Console. Do not remove rules that protect legitimate private areas without understanding the impact.
Use SiteReadyScore to see whether public robots and sitemap URLs are present and reachable. Then inspect their contents, compare against the live URL structure, and use Search Console for Google-specific indexing data. A scan cannot infer every account-side or crawler-specific result.