.htaccess files

can these files increase traffic?

[agerhart]

I know you guys must be pretty sick of my boring posts, but if I don't ask, I'm not going to learn. My question is this: Is it possible that a .htaccess file will add traffic to a site? I had this question pased to me by a superior at the company I work for, and after some research, and figuring out how to make them, I found nothing on the use mentioned above. If anyone has input on this it would be a great deal of help.
-A Gerhart

[Brett_Tabke]

htaccess files are using to pass configuration commands to your web server.

- a page is requested by a visitor.
- the webserver checks the directory for an htaccess file.
- if found, processes directives in the file.
- acts on directives.

There isn't anything I can really think of you may be referring to that would increase your rankings. There are some server directives you can pass that may help, but that is just configuration (such as enabling server side includes for non .shtml files).

[georged]

Maybe your superior means with a re-direct, i.e. the traffic gets lured to a doorway page, is re-directed by .htaccess and thus 'added' to the destination site.
It's a very tenuous guess, but possible if he's got the wrong end of the stick and heard someone talking about server-side re-directs.
But then he has got the wrong end of some stick, somewhere.

[agerhart]

Brett,
But what about how you can change the 404 to any design that you choose.....and with this then any time someone gets a 404 response from any web site that you are hosting they would have the chance to click onto your site? Think this would work?

[agerhart]

Georged,
I think you may be thinking on the same sort of wavelength as me and my boss. I think that the idea I just posted has some potential.....yes/no?

[georged]

You mean as discussed here?:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[agerhart]

Yes.....that is exactly what I am talking about....thanks for the help. You didn't give me your opinion.....do you think this has any potential at all to help the site out?

[georged]

Yes, certainly, it's better than getting a plain 404, which is just annoying. Note that bit about only using relative URLs though.

[agerhart]

I just attempted to put up my custom 404 response page......but to no avail. I am not sure what is wrong.....my .htaccess file looks like this:

ErrorDocument 404 /404error.htm

<Files .htaccess>
deny from all
</Files>

Am I missing something?
-A Gerhart

[agerhart]

I know everyone around here is busy, but noone has posted to the question I posted in a week. If anyone reads this and has any insight on this, I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks
-A Gerhart

[mivox]

Well, the line you posted here looks exactly like the ErrorDocument line I have in *my* htaccess file, so I really can't say. I assume your 404 document is in your web site's root directory? (same as your index.html page?)

If I were you, I'd contact your website host and make sure there isn't something odd about their server set up... you're not hosted on NT are you? I've heard htaccess can't help with 404s on an NT server.

[agerhart]

Thank you for the reply Mivox, and I am waiting for a response from one of my colleagues right now. I know that we use a colocated box, and we were actually having a little conversation last week about how this may or may not affect being able to use .htaccess files to create custom 404 pages.

[DaveAtIFG]

Take a peek at this [bignosebird.com] page. Assuming an Apache server, your host will need to configue the AllowOveride parameter before your .htaccess change will be recognized and implemented.

[agerhart]

Dave,
Thank you very much, I have a feeling that is exactly what I am looking for. I am going to check with the appropriate people and hopefully this will work.
-A Gerhart