> I doubt that _not_ adding it is a _significant_ barrier to bots. It's a fixed name root file, how hard can it be? No, `robots.txt` is a fixed name root file. Naming the sitemap `sitemap.xml` is just a convention. > We\u2019ve always felt linking to your XML sitemap from your robots.txt is a bit nonsense. I couldn't disagree more. It is essential for the reasons I've given above.