Code to keep search engines at bay ?

[wiley]

Hello,

Was wondering if there is any code to keep search engine bots from
picking up my ebay auction pages and archiveing them, earning them free
publicity and competing against my off-ebay website ?

Any help appreciated, Wm

 

[Luigi Donatello Asero]

Hello,

Was wondering if there is any code to keep search engine bots from
picking up my ebay auction pages and archiveing them, earning them free
publicity and competing against my off-ebay website ?

Any help appreciated, Wm

You could use https and then protect those pages by using a password.
As search engines do not know the password they could not come in...

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

You could use https and then protect those pages by using a password.
As search engines do not know the password they could not come in...

No, then his eBay auctions would not be viewable from eBay... https is
*not* what you think it is...

Put eBay auction files in a folder and use a robot.txt file to indicate
that that folder is not to be indexed. Google "robot.txt" for syntax...

 

[John Hosking]

Put eBay auction files in a folder and use a robot.txt file to indicate
that that folder is not to be indexed. Google "robot.txt" for syntax...

That would be robots.txt, with an "s". When you've googled, be sure to
read the part about robots.txt not working with misbehaving spiders.

 

[David Dorward]

That would be robots.txt, with an "s". When you've googled, be sure to
read the part about robots.txt not working with misbehaving spiders.

.... and where the file has to go. I doubt the OP can write to that section
of ebay's site.

 

[richard]

You could use https and then protect those pages by using a password.
As search engines do not know the password they could not come in...

The 's' means "secure". IE will show a little icon like a padlock when
you're on a secure site.
Password protection is no good for public auctions.

 

[richard]

Hello,

Was wondering if there is any code to keep search engine bots from
picking up my ebay auction pages and archiveing them, earning them free
publicity and competing against my off-ebay website ?

Any help appreciated, Wm

"Your" pages?
If it's an actual auction listed on the ebay site, then you are at their
mercy.
Chances are if you try to install any coding at all, and ebay found out,
you'd be kicked off.
Then how you would do it if you don't have access to the root of the domain
where that stuff would go?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

... and where the file has to go. I doubt the OP can write to that section
of ebay's site.

I think the OP does what I do, host my own images for eBay rather than
use eBay's serverice to host them so the imagea and/or parts of the
auction page are on his server not eBay's. So he could prevent the
indexing of -his- eBay folder.

And yes, a typo, should have been 'robots.txt'

And to misbehaving spiders, if they don't play by the rules then there
is not much you can do...except maybe redirect in an .htaccess entry for
the little bugger. But you would have to trap the user agent of each
misbehaving spider.

 

[Harlan Messinger]

The 's' means "secure".

"Secure" means many things. In this case, it means the stream is
encrypted so that anyone intercepting it on its way between the client
and the server is unable to read it. This has nothing to do with robots
or access.

 

[Harlan Messinger]

Hello,

Was wondering if there is any code to keep search engine bots from
picking up my ebay auction pages and archiveing them, earning them free
publicity and competing against my off-ebay website ?

I don't understand what it is you're trying to prevent. A search engine
isn't getting publicity from your pages turning up in search results. As
for the competition, it sounds like you don't want your eBay pages
competing against your non-eBay pages. What, you want *fewer* potential
buyers to find the items you're trying to sell?

 

[Nikita the Spider]

And to misbehaving spiders, if they don't play by the rules then there
is not much you can do...except maybe redirect in an .htaccess entry for
the little bugger. But you would have to trap the user agent of each
misbehaving spider.

I'm sure you're aware that misbehaving spiders can also send a false
user-agent string. There's nothing (except the threat of legal action)
to stop them from masquerading as Googlebot, for instance. That said, a
lot of ill-behaved spiders that I see in my server logs look like they
send distinctive user-agent strings.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I'm sure you're aware that misbehaving spiders can also send a false
user-agent string. There's nothing (except the threat of legal action)
to stop them from masquerading as Googlebot, for instance. That said, a
lot of ill-behaved spiders that I see in my server logs look like they
send distinctive user-agent strings.

As I said "if they don't play by the rules then there is not much you
can do"

 

[Solbu]

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(e-mail address removed) sent the following transmission through subspace:

Hello,

Was wondering if there is any code to keep search engine bots from
picking up my ebay auction pages and archiveing them

http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html

http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html

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Solbu - http://www.solbu.net
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