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🤖 Robots.txt Timestamps and WordPress Timezone Settings in Search Atlas

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Camilo Aponte

Camilo Aponte

Last updated on Sep 30, 2026

The Search Atlas plugin displays all timestamps in the Robots.txt editor — including the current-time indicator and backup history entries — using the timezone configured in WordPress Settings → General. If your timestamps changed after a recent plugin update, this is expected; this article helps you verify your timezone setting and resolve any display issues.

🤖 What Changed: Timestamps Now Reflect Your WordPress Timezone

Before this update, every timestamp in the Search Atlas Robots.txt editor was hardcoded to UTC, regardless of your WordPress timezone setting. After the update, the plugin reads your WordPress timezone directly from Settings → General and applies it to all timestamp displays in the Robots.txt UI. No additional configuration inside Search Atlas is required.

⚙️ How to Verify or Update Your WordPress Timezone

The Search Atlas plugin does not store a timezone of its own — it reads directly from WordPress core. To check or update the setting that controls your Robots.txt timestamps:

  1. In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Settings → General.
  2. Locate the Timezone field.
  3. Select your city or the correct UTC offset from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click Save Changes.

The Search Atlas Robots.txt editor will reflect the updated timezone on the next page load. No plugin settings need to be touched separately.

🕐 Where Timestamps Appear in the Robots.txt Editor

Two areas inside the Search Atlas Robots.txt editor display timestamps affected by this change:

  • Current time indicator — shown at the top of the editor so you can confirm which timezone is active at a glance.
  • Backup history entries — each time you save a version of your robots.txt file, the entry is stamped with the date and time of the save, now in your WordPress timezone.

Both timestamp types update automatically once your WordPress timezone is set correctly in Settings → General.

🛠️ Troubleshooting: Timestamps Still Show UTC After Updating

If the Robots.txt editor still displays timestamps in UTC after updating Search Atlas, work through these steps in order:

  1. Confirm your plugin version is current. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and apply any pending Search Atlas update.
  2. Verify your WordPress timezone is not set to plain UTC. Go to Settings → General → Timezone and select a specific city or a non-UTC offset from the dropdown.
  3. Clear your page and server cache. A caching plugin or CDN may be serving a stale version of the page that still shows old UTC timestamps.
  4. Hard-refresh the Robots.txt editor page. Press Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows or Cmd + Shift + R on Mac to bypass the browser cache.

If timestamps remain incorrect after all four steps, contact Search Atlas support and include your current WordPress timezone setting and your Search Atlas plugin version number.

🎯 You now know how the Search Atlas plugin derives Robots.txt timestamps from your WordPress timezone setting and how to confirm everything is configured correctly. For guidance on structuring the content of your robots.txt file, see the Robots.txt Best Practices article in the Search Atlas Knowledge Base.