GWT - access denied

[vinpkl]

Hi

In the google webmaster tools it showing “ACCESS DENIED” error on “IMAGES” folder.

RESPONSE CODE 403

Images are shown fine on the website and everyone is able to see images on website.

I have checked my robots.txt also. There is no mention of “images” folder in it.

Then why is the error arising ?? What can be the reason of “ACCESS DENIED”

vineet

[Gandalf]

Do you have

Options -Indexes

in your .htaccess file?

[vinpkl]

@Gandalf

Do you have

Options -Indexes

in your .htaccess file?

no its not there

i have this instead of it in htaccess file

options +FollowSymLinks

Do you think i should replace it ??

vineet

[Gandalf]

@vinpkl

Do you think i should replace it ??

No! I was looking for a reason you might get a 403. If it’s not in the .htaccess file it may well be in the server’s config file. Is it actually a problem for you? It is a security measure so that people don’t see all your images if they try to access the images file.

[vinpkl]

@Gandalf

If it’s not in the .htaccess file it may well be in the server’s config file.

hi

there are other folders also

js folder
css folder

both js and css folder are not shown “access denied” error.

why would server config file deny access to only one “images folder” ??

if it should deny, then i think all folders would be denied ??

Do you agree with me ??

vineet

[Gandalf]

Hi there

What happens is that if there is no index document (index.html, index.php etc) in a directory, if someone goes to domain.com/images or domain.com/js etc the server lists all files in that folder. This could be a security risk (with js files particularly) or unwanted (for your images), so the server is often configured so as not to allow access to domain.com/images and domain.com/js etc. It still allows access to the files in that folder, just to the document index. And, yes, this is any directory that has no index file.

I hope this makes sense. I’m not very good at explaining this.

[vinpkl]

@Gandalf

What happens is that if there is no index document (index.html, index.php etc) in a directory, if someone goes to domain.com/images or domain.com/js etc the server lists all files in that folder. This could be a security risk (with js files particularly) or unwanted (for your images), so the server is often configured so as not to allow access to domain.com/images and domain.com/js etc. It still allows access to the files in that folder, just to the document index. And, yes, this is any directory that has no index file.

So at present all my js files are getting listed.

If i want to hide them then i should create a index page in that directory and hide the listing.

this way googlebot will not show “access denied” error and listing will also get hide.

this will solve two purposes.

And there will be no need to put “options-indexes” in the js folder to hide listing.

The listing will automatically get hide by creating index page.

Am i thinking right ??

vineet

[Mittineague]

@vinpkl

Am i thinking right ??

Pretty much. A lot depends on how things are configured and set-up.
AFAIK in general it’s something like

HTTP Request for a folder.
eg. http://mysite/somefolder/

If there is an index.php file serve that
If there is no index.php file, but there is an index.html file serve that
If there is neither an index.php nor an index.html file show a list of the folders content.

IMHO Options -Indexes is a lot easier than putting “nothing to see here” files in folders, but it is commonly done.