Is it an idea to include a 'robots.txt' file to the default install??
Maybe for security reasons? Something like this.

I think if we're worried about search engines and hackers being able to get into those areas, it'd be better to use the filesystem's permissions.

My understanding is that the kids who want to deface web sites either attack by pre-written scripts (in which case this won't help), or use robots.txt as a starting point to find out where interesting stuff may be hidden.

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Damn straight.

My organisation's site gets more bad requests for robots.txt (which I studiously avoid using) than the index page!

Kids today - I dunno.

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robots.txt has it's uses, particluarly when you have a CMS system that has a lot of links with query variables in them. The bots cant get lost pretty quickly and go wandering around forever. I recently installed mediawiki on my box and I sent by search bot to index stuff - I came back 2 hours later (this is normally a 2 minute process) and it was still wandering around indexing the dumbest most useless pages. I don't know how long he would have stayed there fooling around, but I stopped him, deleted his search database (which was massive because of all the dumb pages indexed), and set up a robot.txt file, which saved the day.

Edit: using a proper robot.txt file can help the Googlebot not get lost as well.

For the reasons outlined above robots.txt is a good idea. It is also possible to block direct access to the directories shown in the robots.txt. For example to stop direct running of scripts in the lib directory place a .htaccess file in that directory with the following  directive (assuming an apache webserver):


Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all


This will stop direct execution (ie. typing the full url) of any scripts in /lib directory, but will not stop inclusion of scripts via include/require statements.

Repeat for any directories where direct execution is not wanted.

That's pretty nifty.  Can you do stuff like etc?

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It's a VERY simple protocol that hasn't been updated since 1994. What you're asking is beyond the scope I think but there are better mehtods for securing directories. This is only a basic instruction for benevolent robots. Others will simply ignore it, or use it to their advantage.

http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion-admin.html

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I think wishy was talking about Apache configuration.

Ah, right you are. Yes. [cough][cough]

Yes, Apache config through htaccess is the way.

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Hi,

I agree with the guy who said that script-kiddies would normally start by looking at robots.txt to find something sweet that should be normally ignored by the search bots. Thus I attach my own robots.txt that I currently use. Hope that helps someone.

[attachment deleted by admin]

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