php and 'include' files

[charlie12345]

My site consists of php files, which 'include' various '.inc' files. Should I list all the '.inc' files as DISALLOW? Or would that stop the robot/spider from following the content of the .php pages....

Thanks,
Charlie

[lorax]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld charlie12345,
Don't even mention those files in your robots.txt. The bots will never know those files exist if you don't mention them. Hackers will know they exist if you stick them in your robots.txt file!

[scottiecla]

Hi Charlie-

Since you don't link directly to the included files (they are already compiled and returned as a complete page to the browser which is what the spider will get) there's no reason the spider would find them and crawl them separately.

So, no, you don't need to exclude them. :)