500 code..whats it mean?

some spiders getting a 500?

[soapystar]

Tried checking my site with a keyword density ananlyzer and it returns a 500 error...it does this for all pages...tried a variety of meta and density checkers and two keep returning the 500 when they always previously worked fine. They are working fine for other sites too. Ive tried 7 altogether and 3 return the 500 and 4 work ok. Any ideas what could be causing this?

[takagi]

500 is an 'Internal Server Error'. Do you use cgi/php/asp script or so on these pages? Are the permissions for these files correct? Did you use correct mode for FTP uploading (ASCII)?

[soapystar]

these are all static pages. Its must be the server at the host end because it did it for all the sites i have hosted with them. They are static Html pages. I just checked again and its working fine. Its worrying though because if its the server at the host it could return a 500 for google. Thats my fear! Without google im nothing. :-)

[takagi]

In that case, I should contact your hosting company, to ask the reason of this problem. Is it a free-hosting site?

[soapystar]

nope. And the twits are asking for a copy of MY logs. Go figure.

[jdMorgan]

soapystar,

A single typo or stray space character in your .htaccess file or a shared script might cause this, too, if you use mod_rewrite or any other module or script that has conditionally-executed directives. Under normal circumstances, the faulty directive is not executed, and so does not cause a server error. However, when you use the IP address/user_agent/remote_host of the KW density checker, the faulty directive is invoked, and causes the server error.

If you have access to your raw error log, you may see the problem descibed there.

Jim

[soapystar]

JD MORGAN thanks. But its happening on all sites even those with no htaccess. As i say it is now working fine so it would suggest this is to do with the host.