3 replies to this topic

[Force7]

Hi,

We were really hit hard by the latest Panda 3.3 update. Originally down 47% and then after some changes that we tried to beef up a few pages, it actually fell to -57% now. We are white hat seo all the way, been online for over 10 years so looking at everything on the site.

One of our writers one day commented that some of our existing folders did not have a 'index page and that this was a security risk because anyone could type in the folder and see the type of server. Did not really seem like a risk since you can check the server and even all the domains on it but we took his advice and set up an index page.

Now my concern is the index page in these folders will look like thin content.

Example we sell professional translation software. We have about 13 folders that contain tutorials and articles and they are named by language. /spanish /french
in each folder is a file called index.php and on that page is just our regular design template and a large image with no text and three links to main sections of our website.

Should I remove these pages or just add conent to them? These pages have no incoming links internally on our site but google has them indexed.

Was he correct in it being a security risk to have a folder with no index page.

Thanks
Force7

[Jill]

What happens when someone goes directly to /spanish or /french?

Those ARE your index page! (Or should be.)

[Force7]

We had it set up a little different. The pages that are in those folders actually link from a page in our root, index-spanish Therefore a second index page was not needed.

[Jill]

Then remove those index pages and simply set your website so do not allow browsable directories. (It may already be set that way.)

But yeah, you definitely don't want those index pages that are not useful or part of the website.