[ic] missing.html and a 404

[Gary Norton]

Grant wrote:

>Some search engine spiders keep coming around looking for the same
>pages that send them to my missing.html page again and again.  I was
>wondering if missing.html returns a 404, and I found the following in
>the docs:
>
>[tag op=header]Status: 404 missing[/tag]
>
>But If I add that to missing.html I get a blank page (and probably a
>404).  Does the missing.html page always return a 404 so robots know
>what's up?
>
>- Grant
>
Grant, here is a link to a tool that I often use to check things like this:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi

When I use it to query a non-existing page it appears that the default 
missing.html is in actuality returning a code: 200 Status ok.

I placed [tag op=header]Status: 404 missing[/tag] in the missing.html 
page like this:

@_NOLEFT_TOP_@
[tag op=header]Status: 404 missing[/tag]

Now when I check the page, I am indeed getting a true 404 code.

It looks like I will be updating my catalogs with this change. I hadn't 
noticed it before. Thanks for pointing this out.

-Gary