robots.txt Rerouting on Development Servers
Every website should have a robots.txt file. Some bots hit sites so often that they slow down performance, other bots simply aren't desirable. robots.txt files can also be used to communicate sitemap location and limit request rate. It's important that the correct robots.txt file is served on development servers though, and that file is usually much different than your production robots.txt file. Here's a quick .htaccess snippet you can use to make that happen:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} devdomain
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots-go-away.txt [L]
The robots-go-away.txt file most likely directs robots not to index anything, unless you want your dev server to be indexed for some reason (hint: you really don't want this).
![CSS vs. JS Animation: Which is Faster?]()
How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS transitions? And, how is it possible that Adobe and Google consistently release media-rich mobile sites that rival the performance of native apps?
This article serves as a point-by-point...
![5 HTML5 APIs You Didn’t Know Existed]()
When you say or read "HTML5", you half expect exotic dancers and unicorns to walk into the room to the tune of "I'm Sexy and I Know It." Can you blame us though? We watched the fundamental APIs stagnate for so long that a basic feature...
![jQuery Countdown Plugin]()
You've probably been to sites like RapidShare and MegaUpload that allow you to download files but make you wait a specified number of seconds before giving you the download link. I've created a similar script but my script allows you to animate the CSS font-size...
![HTML5 Input Types Alternative]()
As you may know, HTML5 has introduced several new input types: number, date, color, range, etc. The question is: should you
start using these controls or not? As much as I want to say "Yes", I think they are not yet ready for any real life...
Here’s an example showing how to include multiple development domains:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^localhost [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.dev [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^test.example.com [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^staging.example.com RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots-disallow.txt [L]use vagrant