Hi,

Does anyone have any info on what happens if your server throws up a 500
error whilst being crawled by the big guys? Are there penalties if a SE
encounters . . lots?

Thanks!

Emme

Emme wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Does anyone have any info on what happens if your server throws up a 500
> error whilst being crawled by the big guys? Are there penalties if a SE
> encounters . . lots?

My best guess, assuming you have inbound links: nothing. You might get
crawled slower and slower, but real penalties (like a ban), I doubt it.

I assume that the 500 was temporary.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
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Emme wrote:

> Hi,

> Does anyone have any info on what happens if your server throws up a
> 500
> error whilst being crawled by the big guys? Are there penalties if a SE
> encounters . . lots?

> Thanks!

> Emme

Google and even more often MSN will occasionally index a 500 or 404 error
pages, especially customized ones. But there is really no point in doing
that: nobody in the right mind is going to click on the link. I don't
think the rest of your pages will get penalized for few error pages here
and there.


Sincerely,
Dmitri
http://www.1-script.com/install/
Check out my CGI scripts installation offer
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www.1-script.com wrote:

> Emme wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>
>> Does anyone have any info on what happens if your server throws up a
>> 500
>> error whilst being crawled by the big guys? Are there penalties if a SE
>> encounters . . lots?
>
>> Thanks!
>
>> Emme
>
> Google and even more often MSN will occasionally index a 500 or 404 error
> pages, especially customized ones.

I would say: only customized ones that return *not* a 500 or 404 status
code, but 200 (or some other OKish code).

> But there is really no point in doing
> that: nobody in the right mind is going to click on the link.

Depends what is in the custom error message :-)

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

"John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96**6BABA6BF5castleamber@130.133.1.4...
> www.1-script.com wrote:
>
> > Emme wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >
> >> Does anyone have any info on what happens if your server throws up a
> >> 500
> >> error whilst being crawled by the big guys? Are there penalties if a SE
> >> encounters . . lots?
> >
> >> Thanks!
> >
> >> Emme
> >
> > Google and even more often MSN will occasionally index a 500 or 404
error
> > pages, especially customized ones.
>
> I would say: only customized ones that return *not* a 500 or 404 status
> code, but 200 (or some other OKish code).

Yeah I've seen that before and agree, although it's an error page, the
status in the header must be a 200 or similar.

> > But there is really no point in doing
> > that: nobody in the right mind is going to click on the link.
>
> Depends what is in the custom error message :-)

Thanks for the info! The 500's are temporary, but I'm working with a site
with huge amounts of database driven content and not super technical staff.
I'm trying to assess how much time to spend with them hand-holding through
the process of reducing the number of errors

Emme.

<snip>