Skip to Main Content
Sustainable Web Design Logo
  • Home
  • Guidelines
  • Emissions
  • Ratings
  • Contact

◂ Web Development guidelines

3.13 Include expected and beneficial files

Web Development

Include standard website metadata and configuration files to support discoverability, transparency, and operational best practices.

Success Criteria

  • Expected files:
    Include favicon.ico, robots.txt, opensearch.xml, site.webmanifest, and sitemap.xml by default. Include additional default files if they become standard.
  • Beneficial files:
    Include additional standard files, such as ads.txt, carbon.txt, humans.txt, and security.txt. Include additional default files if they become standard.

View the Guideline

Tags

AccessibilityCompatibilityPatternsUIMarketingAssetsSecurity

Share

More web development guidelines

3.1 Set goals based on performance and energy impact

Web Development

3.2 Minify and remove unused code

Web Development

3.3 Modularize bandwidth-heavy components

Web Development

Learn about W3C’s Sustainable Web Interest Group:

A global community advancing sustainability on the web.

Explore the group

This site is brought to you by

Mightybytes Wholegrain Digital
Website Carbon

This page loaded in 0.25 seconds and emitted just 0.5g of CO2

Visit Website Carbon
Ecograder

How green is your website?

Visit Ecograder
© Copyright Sustainable Web Design 2026. Privacy Policy.