Hello guys, i have a folder in my root directory which contains the backup files of my entire website.. my question is, will google still "unindex" my site because of that duplicate content even if i disallow it in my robot.txt? just wanted to make sure though..
No, those backup files will not be indexed by search engs, if there are no links with the files in backup folder. Be sure that, no links established from any other files in root directory with the files in backup folder. Then Google will not unindex your main pages and it will not notify about the duplicate files in backup folder.
it would not index it, so there will not be a duplicate. No worries.. What user-agent did u use (*) general or just (google-bot) ?
i used *.. so all bots wont access those pages... its actually a duplicate content of a forum.. i copy and pasted everything in my root folder and store it in another folder.
If they are just backups you could maybe set the file/folder permissions to a level that they can't be viewed or accessed, like 000 maybe. Otherwise you might pass protect with .htaccess just to prevent bots, and even snoops. Possibly even .htaccess deny all except your ip address. Just a few thoughts.