What are your thoughts on security of placing CMS-related folders in a robots.txt file?
-
So I was just about to add a whole heap of CMS-related folders to my robots.txt file to exclude them from search, and thought "hey, I'm publicly telling people where my admin folders are"...surely that's not right?!
Should I leave them out of the robots.txt file, and hope for the best that they never get indexed? Should I use noindex meta data on every page?
What are people's thoughts?
Thanks,
James
PS. I know this is similar to lots of other discussions around meta noindex vs. robots.txt, but I'm after specific thoughts around the security aspect of listing your admin folders in a robots.txt file...
-
surly your admin folders are secured?, it would not matter if someone knows where they are.
-
As a rule, you want to avoid using robots.txt files whenever possible. It does not consistently protect you from crawlers and when it does block crawlers it kills any PR on those pages.
If you can block those pages with a noindex tag, it would be a preferable solution.
With respect to security for a CMS site, it really needs to be a comprehensive effort. Many site owners take a couple steps and then have a false-sense of security. Here are a few thoughts:
-
try the site address with /administrator after it to access Joomla and other sites
-
try the site address or blog with /wp-admin/ after it to access Joomla sites
-
make up a webpage and try accessing it to view the site's 404 page
-
right-click on a page and choose View Page Source. Often you will see the name of the CMS clearly listed. Other times you will see clear clues such as /wp/ in folder names. Other times you will find unique extensions such as Yoast SEO which will give you an idea of the CMS
Once a bad guy knows which CMS is in use, they know the default folder structure and more. The point is it requires a lot more effort then most people realize to hide the CMS in use. I applaud your effort, but be very thorough about it. There is a lot more involved then simply covering your robots.txt file.
-
-
I found three options for you: http://www.techiecorner.com/106/how-to-disable-directory-browsing-using-htaccess-apache-web-server/
I think if you do it with.htacces that is a folder specific file than nobody will be able to detect where admin contet is located.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can ht access file affect page load times
We have a large and old site. As we've transition from one CMS to another, there's been a need for create 301 redirects using our ht access file. I'm not a technical SEO person, but concerned that the size of our ht access file might be contributing source for long page download times. Can large ht access files cause slow page load times? Or is the coding of the 301 redirect a cause for slow page downloads? Thanks
Technical SEO | | ahw1 -
In Facebook when i place my site URL the image does not load?
In Facebook when i place my site URL the image does not load? It loads some generic image or logo but not other image thats related to the page. Is there any Tag we need to add in the website so the image loads? Is it good to use a tag as this for description? property="og:description" content="Some data" />
Technical SEO | | bsharath0 -
Should Sitemaps be placed in the sub folder they reference?
I have a sitemap-index.xml file in the root. I then have several sitemaps linked to from the index in example.com/sitemaps/sitemap1.xml, example.com/sitemaps/sitemap2.xml, etc. I have seen on other sites that for example a sitemap containing blogs where the blogs are located at example.com/blog/blog1/ would be located at example.com/blog/sitemap.xml. Is it necessary to have the sitemap located in the same folder like this? I would like to have all sitemaps in a single sitemap folder for convenience but not if it will confuse search engines. My index count for URLs in some sitemaps has dropped dramatically in Google Webmaster Tools over the past month or so and I'm not sure if this is having an effect. If it matters, I have all sitemap files, including the index, listed in the robots.txt file.
Technical SEO | | Giovatto0 -
Does uploading a new disavow file wipe out the original?
Hi guys, Just struggling to get a definitive answer on this one. If say I disavow 55 domains, then upload a brand new disavow file with on 35 domains in it, does this mean the original disavow file will be overwritten and those original domains will be forgotten about? Kind regards!
Technical SEO | | WCR0 -
What's wrong with this robots.txt
Hi. really struggling with the robots.txt file
Technical SEO | | Leonie-Kramer
this is it: User-agent: *
Disallow: /product/ #old sitemap
Disallow: /media/name.xml When testing in w3c.org everything looks good, testing is okay, but when uploading it to the server, Google webmaster tools gives 3 errors. Checked it with my collegue we both don't know what's wrong. Can someone take a look at this and give me the solution.
Thanx in advance! Leonie1 -
Duplicate Content due to CMS
The biggest offender of our website's duplicate content is an event calendar generated by our CMS. It creates a page for every day of every year, up to the year 2100. I am considering some solutions: 1. Include code that stops search engines from indexing any of the calendar pages 2. Keep the calendar but re-route any search engines to a more popular workshops page that contains better info. (The workshop page isn't duplicate content with the calendar page). Are these solutions possible? If so, how do the above affect SEO? Are there other solutions I should consider?
Technical SEO | | ycheung0 -
Advice on Linking to an Adult Related Website
I have a question regarding whether or not Google would penalize my main website for linking to a website that has adult content. The site I am linking to is not a porn site, rather it is a site that sells web site templates for adult related stores selling sexy toys, videos, etc. For example my site that is linking to the adult related website is here: http://www.websitetemplatedesign.com/ and the link to the site is in the footer at the bottom left which is an icon. And it links to http://www.adultsextemplates.com/ Im just looking for advice as to whether or not this could be a penalty or not. I did suffer major SERP loss in the last month and Im trying to find what I am doing that may have caused this. Any advice would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | jmccommas0 -
Allow or Disallow First in Robots.txt
If I want to override a Disallow directive in robots.txt with an Allow command, do I have the Allow command before or after the Disallow command? example: Allow: /models/ford///page* Disallow: /models////page
Technical SEO | | irvingw0
