Blank index file in folders

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by ian_ok, Aug 22, 2005.

  1. #1
    Does using a blank index.html in folders to prevent users from viewing a directory of the contents cause any problems with SEO etc?

    i.e. the file could be crawled by G and then be a drain on your rankings.

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Aug 22, 2005 IP
  2. Smyrl

    Smyrl Tomato Republic Staff

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    #2
    You can put a link on it to another web page. Without an index file my log files have shown visitors to folders for which I did not want..

    Shannon
     
    Smyrl, Aug 22, 2005 IP
  3. mcfox

    mcfox Wind Maker

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    #3
    Shouldn't cause a problem but if you are worried about it, use the robots meta tag:
    <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX","NOFOLLOW">

    That way, it gets ignored by the spiders.
     
    mcfox, Aug 22, 2005 IP
  4. johnt

    johnt Peon

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    #4
    You could use

    Options -Indexes

    in your .htaccess file. That would switch off auto-indexing so the user would not be presented with the directory listing. I would guess that any such requests would return a 404 error, but I've never tried it so I can't be certain.

    cheers

    John
     
    johnt, Aug 22, 2005 IP
  5. ian_ok

    ian_ok Peon

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    #5
    Thanks for that, will report back soon on what i do....

    Ian
     
    ian_ok, Aug 22, 2005 IP