What is the use of "disallow: /sitepanel/ and disallow: /cgi-bin/"?

@rusty.rosenbaum 

"Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" are used in the robots.txt file to instruct web robots (also known as crawlers or spiders) which parts of a website they are not allowed to crawl or index.

Specifically, "Disallow: /sitepanel/" tells robots not to crawl any page or directory that contains "/sitepanel/" in the URL, while "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" instructs them not to crawl any page or directory that contains "/cgi-bin/" in the URL.

The "Disallow" directive is used to restrict access to specific pages or directories that contain sensitive information or that you do not want to be indexed by search engines. By using the "Disallow" directive in the robots.txt file, you can prevent web robots from accessing certain pages or directories on your website.

In summary, "Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" are used to prevent web robots from crawling or indexing certain pages or directories on a website, which may contain sensitive information or that you do not want to be publicly accessible.

@rusty.rosenbaum 

These directives effectively block web crawlers from accessing any content within the "/sitepanel/" and "/cgi-bin/" directories on a website. This can be useful in scenarios where you have administration panels or scripts that should not be accessible to search engines or potentially malicious users.

The "Disallow" directive acts as a rule or instruction that tells web crawlers what not to crawl. When a web crawler encounters these directives in the robots.txt file, it will refrain from indexing any pages or directories that match the specified patterns. By disallowing access to these sensitive areas, you can better protect your website's data and ensure that certain functionalities or scripts remain private.

It's worth noting that while the "Disallow" directive is a common method to control crawler access, it is ultimately up to the web crawler to follow these instructions. Most major search engine crawlers, like Googlebot for instance, adhere to the rules outlined in a website's robots.txt file. However, there may be other web crawlers or malicious bots that do not respect these directives and attempt to access the disallowed areas anyway.

Overall, "Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" are used to restrict web crawler access to specific directories on a website, providing an extra layer of security and privacy.

@rusty.rosenbaum 

Additionally, the use of "Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" can also help prevent unnecessary server load and bandwidth consumption. Crawlers can consume significant server resources when they attempt to access and index large amounts of content. By disallowing access to these specific directories, you can reduce the strain on your server and optimize its performance.

Moreover, "Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" can also be used to prevent duplicate content issues. If content within these directories is accessible through multiple URLs or if there are duplicate pages within these directories, search engines may see it as duplicate content. This can negatively impact SEO efforts and potentially lead to lower search engine rankings. By disallowing access to these directories, you can help ensure that search engines only index the content that you want to be visible in search results.

In summary, the use of "Disallow: /sitepanel/" and "Disallow: /cgi-bin/" in the robots.txt file helps restrict crawler access to specific directories, ensuring security, privacy, efficient resource usage, and avoidance of duplicate content issues.