Getting ready to be found

The work: 15 May 2026 · Written 1 November 2026 · Entry 6 of 17

A website that nobody finds helps nobody. On 15 May 2026 the project added Google Analytics, and with it the first of the small files that search engines and ad services look for: a robots.txt file, an ads.txt file and the verification tag for an ad service.

What each file does

• robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of the site they may visit. TypeLemon lets everyone in and keeps only the API and the real-time hub out.
• ads.txt names the sellers that are allowed to place ads on the site.
• A verification tag proves to a service that the site belongs to the person who asked.
• The analytics code counts visits and events so that we can see what people use.

Measuring without knowing who

The analytics follow one rule that has not changed: no personal data goes into them. Your nickname is not sent. The site only learns that a visitor on a phone, or a tablet or a computer, played a game or opened a page.

What came next

These files were only the beginning of the site's life in search. The site later moved to a new framework that produces every page as plain HTML, added more languages, a sitemap, structured data and a command that audits each page. Those are the topics of later entries.

Small files, plain text

None of these files is complicated. robots.txt and ads.txt are plain text that a person can read in a few seconds, and a verification tag is one line in the page. Search engines fetch robots.txt before they look at anything else on a site, so it is the first place to check when a page does not appear in results.