Download a Site Launch Kit ZIP

The site is built. The pages look right, the domain points at it, and then comes the part nobody enjoys: the small technical files that search engines and browsers expect to find. A robots.txt that says what may be crawled. A sitemap.xml that lists your pages. Head tags for the title, description and the preview card when someone shares a link. A web manifest. A security contact. Each is simple, and each is easy to get slightly wrong, such as a sitemap with a page from another domain in it, or a robots file with a path that has no leading slash.

The short version: fill in a short form in Site Launch Kit, check the list of files it will contain, and download one ZIP with the files and a README that says where each one goes.

What is in the ZIP

The kit holds up to seven files, and the page lists them before you download, so there are no surprises.

• robots.txt. Goes in the site root so it opens at /robots.txt.
• sitemap.xml. Goes in the site root so it opens at /sitemap.xml.
• head-tags.html. A block to paste inside the head of every page.
• structured-data.html. A block of structured data to paste inside the head of your home page.
• site.webmanifest. Goes in the site root, with two icon files beside it.
• .well-known/security.txt. Only included if you give a contact email. It goes in a folder called .well-known at the site root.
• README.txt. A plain note that lists every file and where it belongs.

Everything is made in your browser from what you typed, and nothing is uploaded. The tool keeps your answers for the tab, so a reload does not lose them, and closing the tab erases them. A Start over button clears the form.

The form

Two boxes are required: Site name and Site address. The address should be the full one that you want people to see, with https. If the site works both with and without www, pick one and use it everywhere, because the kit builds every link from the address you type. The tool tidies the address, so example.com with a trailing slash becomes https://example.com.

The other fields are optional. A short description feeds the page description and the sharing cards. A contact email switches on the security file. A share image address is the picture shown when the link is shared, and it can be a path such as /og.png, which the tool turns into a full address using your site address. A language code, which starts as en, sets the language in the tags and files, and a theme colour, which starts as #2563eb, colours the browser bar on phones. The form checks what you type: a missing name, an address that is not a web address, a theme colour that is not a six-digit code such as #2563eb, an email that does not look right and a language code that is not like en or en-GB each stop the download with a clear message.

Two text areas control the crawler files. Pages for the sitemap takes one page per line, and starts with /, /about and /contact. Keep search engines out of takes one path per line, such as /admin or /cart.

What each file really does

robots.txt. A short file at the root that tells crawlers which paths to leave alone. The kit writes a general section for all crawlers, with one Disallow line for each path you listed, and a Sitemap line pointing to your sitemap. If you type a path without a leading slash, such as admin, the tool fixes it to /admin. A tick box, "Ask known AI training crawlers not to read the site (they may ignore it)", adds a section for five named crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, Google-Extended and PerplexityBot), each with Disallow: /. The words in brackets are honest: robots.txt is a request, not a lock, and it only works with crawlers that choose to follow it. Do not use it to hide anything private.

sitemap.xml. A list of page addresses for search engines, each with today's date as the last-modified date. The tool builds each address from your site address and the path you wrote, so /shop becomes https://example.com/shop. It removes duplicates, and it leaves out any line that is not on your site, such as a full address on another domain, and tells you how many it dropped when you download. One thing to watch: a line of nonsense that looks like a path is still turned into an address, so a line reading "not a page" ends up as /not%20a%20page. Read the list before you upload.

head-tags.html. The tags for the head of each page: character set, viewport, the title and description, a canonical link, the Open Graph tags that decide how a shared link looks, Twitter card tags, links to a favicon, an Apple touch icon and the manifest, and the theme colour. The title is simply your site name, so for a page that needs its own title and description you will edit the block per page.

structured-data.html. A block of structured data in the JSON-LD format, describing the site as a WebSite and the owner as an Organization, with the description, the logo and the email if you supplied them. Paste it into the head of your home page.

site.webmanifest. A small file that lets a phone treat the site as an app that can be added to the home screen. It carries the site name, a short name of at most 12 characters, a start page, a standalone display mode and the theme colour. It points to two icons, icon-192.png and icon-512.png, which the kit does not create, so you must add those two images beside the manifest. The head tags also point to favicon.ico and apple-touch-icon.png, which you must supply yourself too.

security.txt. A tiny file that tells security researchers where to report a problem. It lists your contact as a mailto link, an expiry date one year after the day you download, your language and the canonical address of the file. The expiry date matters, since an expired file is treated as out of date, so renew it each year, as the kit's note says.

A worked example

Take a shop called Joe's Mugs at example.com, with the description "Handmade mugs, shipped worldwide", pages /, /shop and /about, an admin area to keep out, and a security contact. You type those in, tick the AI crawlers box, and the kit gives you:

• A robots.txt that disallows /admin and /cart, then one block per named AI crawler, and ends with the sitemap address https://example.com/sitemap.xml.
• A sitemap.xml with three addresses, each dated to the day you made it.
• Head tags with the title Joe's Mugs, the description, the canonical link https://example.com/ and a share image at https://example.com/og.png.
• Structured data naming Joe's Mugs as a website and an organisation.
• A manifest with the short name Joe's Mugs, and a security.txt that expires a year from the download.

What you still have to do

The kit is a starting set. It does not create icons, the favicon or the share image. It does not decide your page titles or write per-page descriptions. And it does not put anything on your site. Follow the README: upload the root files, paste the head blocks into your template, add the icons, then open /robots.txt in a browser to check it. After the site is live, submit sitemap.xml in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. The README says plainly that none of this is a ranking guarantee. It is the basic technical set-up search engines expect.

When to use the single tools instead

If you only need one piece, the single tools are quicker. Robots and Sitemap makes the two crawler files with more options, such as a change-frequency setting, which the kit leaves out. Meta Tag Generator builds per-page tags with extras such as author and keywords. Schema Generator writes structured data for articles, products, FAQ pages, local businesses and recipes. Use the kit on day one and the single tools afterwards, as your site grows. Our robots and sitemap guide goes into the crawler files in more depth.

Steps

1. Open Site Launch Kit and enter the site name and the full address, with https.
2. Add a short description, a share image path and, if you want a security file, a contact email.
3. List your pages, one per line, and any paths to keep crawlers out of.
4. Decide whether to tick the AI crawler box, remembering it is only a request.
5. Read the list of files and fix any message under the form.
6. Download the ZIP, then follow the README to upload the root files and paste the head blocks.
7. Add the icon files, check /robots.txt in a browser, and submit the sitemap to the search consoles.

The tool is a Premium Application with 2 trial uses a day, then a $3 day pass or the $9.99 monthly plan. The download is what uses a trial use. The form is checked first, so a mistake does not spend one.

Common mistakes

Using the address without https, or switching between www and non-www. Listing pages from another domain in the sitemap. Forgetting the two icon files, so the manifest points to nothing. Using robots.txt to hide private pages, which it cannot do. Letting security.txt expire. Leaving the same title and description on every page. And not submitting the sitemap after launch.

Summary

A new site needs a small set of technical files, and getting them from one form is faster and safer than writing them by hand. Site Launch Kit builds robots.txt, sitemap.xml, head tags, structured data, a web manifest and an optional security.txt, checks your input, and packs them with a README that says where each goes. More tools for search set-up are in the SEO tools category.

Open Site Launch Kit→

What other file would you like in the kit? Tell us on the contact page.