.htaccess configuration (limit get, allow, deny)and search engine questions

[Elhcay]

Part of my default .htaccess contain the following lines

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>

What do they do? What having deny first and then allow mean? Will they prevent search engines from crawling my site? If so, will removing them have any effects on site security? Or how could they be modified? Thanks.

[dotwebbie]

That is what your host put in? Okay, first off, no, that will not stop search engines from crawling your site. If you want to do that, create a robots.txt file. As for the <LIMIT> part, I'm not exactly sure why that is there . . . It isn't doing any good denying everybody and then allowing everybody. I don't think the order matters a whole lot but I could be wrong on that one so don't quote me on it. :p The IndexIgnore is an Apache handler that stops those certain files from being listed in a directory listing. That can be a security problem if you remove it.