Meta refresh

[WebNinja]

I've got a question about Meta refresh. I know it is a page rank killer but I like to use it as follows:

I like to put a page in a directory that I don't want the public to view, like the images folder, that says something like "you shouldn't be here, go here". I use the meta refresh to goto the home page automatically (or some other page that makes sense).


Now for the question... If my robots.txt disallows that page so no honest spider will see it, could it effect raking somehow?

[mr-ecommerce]

robots.txt doesn't mean it won't see it, if that page has been linked to from another site it can and will legitimately index the page regardless of your robots.txt as the other page says its relevant, and it is.

Could you not use .htaccess files to achieve the same result?
Instead of meta refresh why not look at using a javascript refresh with a textual link backup for non java browsers? (spiders won't see a refresh, just a text link and your customers will be redirected still).

[Ryan Fait]

You don't have to worry about this at all. As long as your not linking to a directory on your site where you don't want people to go, crawlers won't find it. Crawlers don't search for every possible page and directory on your server, they look at your main page and follow links.