Re: Horror story

Mordechai T. Abzug (mabzug1@gl.umbc.edu)
Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:06:04 -0500 (EST)


"MB" == Murray Bent spake thusly:
MB>
MB> Any ideas for a back-up plan in case the 'robots.txt' approach
MB> does not gain more than 5% of the sites (admittedly representing
MB> more than 5% of the cool content).
MB>

I hate to sound heretical, but why is everyone so concerned about this '5%'
figure? I'm sure everyone on this list is a sufficiently sophisticated
programmer to have developed the sort of complex web systems that robots.txt
is supposed to protect, but most web servers probably don't need a robots.txt.
Now, 'most' might not be 95% of all web servers, but the problem is still not
as bad as it might seem. We don't *need* to inform every 'webmaster' who
downloads a server kit and can write HTML; only the hackers.

Monier, do you have any guesses on what fraction of servers *should* have a
robots.txt?

-- 
			  Mordechai T. Abzug
http://umbc.edu/~mabzug1   mabzug1@umbc.edu     finger -l mabzug1@gl.umbc.edu
Assembly programmers drive stick shifts.