Unable to map route for robots.txt in asp.net mvc

Question

I am developing an asp.net mvc application. I am creating robots.txt for my application to prevent from bots because my current site is getting many robot requests. So I found this link, Robots.txt file in MVC.NET 4 to create robots.txt. But I when I access my application like this entering url, "www.domain.com/robots.txt", it is always returning 404 page.

This is my action method in HomeController

public ActionResult Robots()
{
    Response.ContentType = "text/plain";
    return View();
}

This is my robots view

@{
    Layout = null;
}

User-agent:*
Disallow:/

I configured route for robots.txt like this in RouteConfig

 public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
 {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            //routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes();
            routes.MapRoute(
               "Robots.txt",
               "robots.txt",
               new { controller = "Home", action = "Robots" },
               new string[] { "AyarDirectory.Web.Controllers" }
               );

          //other routes
}

But when I access this url, "www.domain.com/robots.txt", it is always returning 404 page. How can I add robots.txt correctly to my application?

Answer 1

Creating a route ending with a file extension is not allowed by default in ASP.NET MVC. To get around this security restriction, you need to add the following to the Web.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <!-- ...Omitted -->
  <system.webServer>
    <!-- ...Omitted -->
    <handlers>
      <!-- ...Omitted -->
      <add name="RobotsText"
           path="robots.txt"
           verb="GET"
           type="System.Web.Handlers.TransferRequestHandler"
           preCondition="integratedMode,runtimeVersionv4.0" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>