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).
![5 More HTML5 APIs You Didn’t Know Existed]()
The HTML5 revolution has provided us some awesome JavaScript and HTML APIs. Some are APIs we knew we've needed for years, others are cutting edge mobile and desktop helpers. Regardless of API strength or purpose, anything to help us better do our job is a...
![Page Visibility API]()
One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?
![CSS Fixed Position Background Image]()
Backgrounds have become an integral part of creating a web 2.0-esque website since gradients have become all the rage. If you think gradient backgrounds are too cliche, maybe a fixed position background would work for you? It does provide a neat inherent effect by...
![WebKit Marquee CSS: Bringin’ Sexy Back]()
We all joke about the days of Web yesteryear. You remember them: stupid animated GIFs (flames and "coming soon" images, most notably), lame counters, guestbooks, applets, etc. Another "feature" we thought we had gotten rid of was the marquee. The marquee was a rudimentary, javascript-like...
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