diff --git a/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py b/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
@@ -74,51 +74,54 @@ class RejectAllRobotsTest(BaseRobotTest,
 # go away
 User-agent: *
 Disallow: /
     """
     good = []
     bad = ['/cyberworld/map/index.html', '/', '/tmp/']
 
 
-class CrawlDelayAndRequestRateTest(BaseRobotTest, unittest.TestCase):
+class BaseRequestRateTest(BaseRobotTest):
+
+    def test_request_rate(self):
+        for url in self.good + self.bad:
+            agent, url = self.get_agent_and_url(url)
+            with self.subTest(url=url, agent=agent):
+                if self.crawl_delay:
+                    self.assertEqual(
+                        self.parser.crawl_delay(agent), self.crawl_delay
+                    )
+                if self.request_rate:
+                    self.assertEqual(
+                        self.parser.request_rate(agent).requests,
+                        self.request_rate.requests
+                    )
+                    self.assertEqual(
+                        self.parser.request_rate(agent).seconds,
+                        self.request_rate.seconds
+                    )
+
+
+class CrawlDelayAndRequestRateTest(BaseRequestRateTest, unittest.TestCase):
     robots_txt = """\
 User-agent: figtree
 Crawl-delay: 3
 Request-rate: 9/30
 Disallow: /tmp
 Disallow: /a%3cd.html
 Disallow: /a%2fb.html
 Disallow: /%7ejoe/index.html
     """
     agent = 'figtree'
     request_rate = namedtuple('req_rate', 'requests seconds')(9, 30)
     crawl_delay = 3
     good = [('figtree', '/foo.html')]
     bad = ['/tmp', '/tmp.html', '/tmp/a.html', '/a%3cd.html', '/a%3Cd.html',
            '/a%2fb.html', '/~joe/index.html']
 
-    def test_request_rate(self):
-        for url in self.good:
-            agent, url = self.get_agent_and_url(url)
-            with self.subTest(url=url, agent=agent):
-                if self.crawl_delay:
-                    self.assertEqual(
-                        self.parser.crawl_delay(agent), self.crawl_delay
-                    )
-                if self.request_rate and self.parser.request_rate(agent):
-                    self.assertEqual(
-                        self.parser.request_rate(agent).requests,
-                        self.request_rate.requests
-                    )
-                    self.assertEqual(
-                        self.parser.request_rate(agent).seconds,
-                        self.request_rate.seconds
-                    )
-
 
 class DifferentAgentTest(CrawlDelayAndRequestRateTest):
     agent = 'FigTree Robot libwww-perl/5.04'
     # these are not actually tested, but we still need to parse it
     # in order to accommodate the input parameters
     request_rate = None
     crawl_delay = None
 
@@ -225,16 +228,29 @@ class EmptyQueryStringTest(BaseRobotTest
 User-agent: *
 Allow: /some/path?
 Disallow: /another/path?
     """
     good = ['/some/path?']
     bad = ['/another/path?']
 
 
+class DefaultEntryTest(BaseRequestRateTest, unittest.TestCase):
+    robots_txt = """\
+User-agent: *
+Crawl-delay: 1
+Request-rate: 3/15
+Disallow: /cyberworld/map/
+    """
+    request_rate = namedtuple('req_rate', 'requests seconds')(3, 15)
+    crawl_delay = 1
+    good = ['/', '/test.html']
+    bad = ['/cyberworld/map/index.html']
+
+
 class RobotHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
 
     def do_GET(self):
         self.send_error(403, "Forbidden access")
 
     def log_message(self, format, *args):
         pass
 
diff --git a/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py b/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
@@ -170,26 +170,30 @@ class RobotFileParser:
                 return entry.allowance(url)
         # try the default entry last
         if self.default_entry:
             return self.default_entry.allowance(url)
         # agent not found ==> access granted
         return True
 
     def crawl_delay(self, useragent):
+        if not self.mtime():
+            return None
         for entry in self.entries:
             if entry.applies_to(useragent):
                 return entry.delay
-        return None
+        return self.default_entry.delay
 
     def request_rate(self, useragent):
+        if not self.mtime():
+            return None
         for entry in self.entries:
             if entry.applies_to(useragent):
                 return entry.req_rate
-        return None
+        return self.default_entry.req_rate
 
     def __str__(self):
         return ''.join([str(entry) + "\n" for entry in self.entries])
 
 
 class RuleLine:
     """A rule line is a single "Allow:" (allowance==True) or "Disallow:"
        (allowance==False) followed by a path."""