Secure Pages - will they show up in google? - Webmaster General forum at WebmasterWorld

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Secure Pages - will they show up in google?

Hubie

7:21 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

I have some sensitive data that I need certain people to access but definitely not the masses.

My thought was to create a secure page with this data, and have a redirect land on this page.

Do secure pages show up in google? Will my plan work to avoid this page of info being searchable by anyone?

phranque

7:28 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

the fact that it is on a secure server or using https protocol does not prevent a search engine from indexing the page.
you must use other techniques to block the page such as robots.txt, a meta noindex or an authentication method.

Hubie

7:32 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

can you point me in the right directions? i am unsure of what robots.txt is.

authentication method? like "enter this phrase to continue"? I appreciate your help

Hubie

8:07 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

OK so if I use an authentication method, it still has to go to a page with information, right? Then how would I have that page not show up in the search engines? If this isnt what you meant by "authentication method" let me know

rocknbil

8:53 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

authentication method = "behind a login screen."

phranque

9:18 pm on Oct 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

for information on the robots exclusion protocol, you should start with the Charter and Library sections of the WebmasterWorld Sitemaps, Meta Data, and robots.txt [webmasterworld.com] forum.

the technical details of HTTP Authentication [ietf.org] may be too much to chew on but the implementation details depend on your server.
for example if you are using an apache server the Authentication, Authorization and Access Control [httpd.apache.org] documentation is a good place to start.