Before I really mess something up

[seahawkfan]

I am trying to Password protect directories of my site. My question is: as a rule what directories may be safe to protect without causing the site not to be browsed

Thank in advance for any help

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Better question - what directories do you NOT want search bots to scourer. If you setup password protection, search engine bots will not be able to index content in those directories or any child directories.

I am trying to Password protect directories of my site. My question is: as a rule what directories may be safe to protect without causing the site not to be browsed

Thank in advance for any help

[seahawkfan]

Better question - what directories do you NOT want search bots to scourer. If you setup password protection, search engine bots will not be able to index content in those directories or any child directories.

Vic,
If I do not protect my sites pages, but protect other directories will my web site still function correctly, such as calling images and such

[dotCOM_host]

That depends on whether you password protect the images directory :-) If you do - visitors without the password won't see images, and neither will webbots spidering your site.

Which directories you can password protect is really quite simple - the ones you want to have people enter a username and password to access any contents from. The only extra thing you need to remember is that password protection generally works on the directory you protect and ALL its subdirectories. If you protect a directory called /secret, and have a directory under it called /secret/stuff/topsecret - if you link to the topsecret directory - you'll be promoted with the login screen since the parent /secret directory is password protected. If you however link to a directory or files in let's say /publicstuff - you won't be prompted to log in since /publicstuff doesn't have the password protection installed on /secret directory.

Hope that makes it easier to understand.