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).
![Create Namespaced Classes with MooTools]()
MooTools has always gotten a bit of grief for not inherently using and standardizing namespaced-based JavaScript classes like the Dojo Toolkit does. Many developers create their classes as globals which is generally frowned up. I mostly disagree with that stance, but each to their own. In any event...
![Regular Expressions for the Rest of Us]()
Sooner or later you'll run across a regular expression. With their cryptic syntax, confusing documentation and massive learning curve, most developers settle for copying and pasting them from StackOverflow and hoping they work. But what if you could decode regular expressions and harness their power? In...
![Using Opacity to Show Focus with MooTools]()
I'm a huge fan of using subtle effects like link nudging (jQuery, MooTools) to enhance the user experience and increase the perceived dynamism of my websites. Trust me -- a lot of little things are what take websites to the next level.
![Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos IV]()
Did you know you can triple-heart things on CodePen? We’ve had that little not-so-hidden feature forever. You can click that little heart button on any Pen (or Project, Collection, or Post) on CodePen to show the creator a little love, but you can click it again...
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