Form results being read by spiders

[CliffK]

I have 2 forms on my site. The form results are posted to my _private
directory. I noticed that my logs show spiders or bots actually reading my
form results! How can I secure the results?
http://example.com/_private/submit-article.txt. Although _private directory
is not private, I though it was until I saw it was being crawled in my logs.
TIA, Cliff

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Don't have the data written to a file, instead have the data from each form sent to your email
address or use server-side scripting to store it in a database.

There is no way to protect the file, since the path and file name is in the form code. The _private
directory is private when access is attempted from a browser.



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Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
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[CliffK]

Based on what I have read here, if I use the form results going to an email,
does this open me to spam? Or, if I use the FP database set up for the form
results, will this "hide" the results from bots? I use Microsoft bcentral to
host my site, so is server-side scripting available to me? Thank you for the
quick reply.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Yes, have the form send an email address when using the FP Form Handler, open that specific email
address for spammers, however which is more important have your user's data access by bad robots or
your email address?

If you can use ASP and a database, you will eliminate access to the data by robots, and also send
email via ASP the would eliminate your email address being public property.

I don't use bCentral, so I have no idea what they support, you would have contact them.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================