awstats http errors

[Runner]

I have just been reviewing some http 404 errors on my awstats report. Can anyone advise if I need to take action on the following url's listed:

/robots.txt

I'm getting a lot of url's in the format /cgi-bin/anyimage.jpg where anyimage.jpg is a relevant image in my site1 folder.

Any ideas?

P.S. Can I run google analytics alongside awstats? Is GA better than AW?

[completerookie]

robots.txt is a file that any search robots lookfor whenever they visit your site, They use the contents of this file to refine the areas they are restricted to looking at on your website.

search for "robots.txt" on google, you'll find enough there to get the idea and create a simple robots.txt for your website.

cgi-bin/anyimage looks as though your hard coding image paths into your pages, without thinking that the actual page is not always served from the acatalog folder.

[RuralWeb]

/robots.txt

When google bot visits your site it will always look for a robots.txt file first if it does not find one then your stats will show a 404. Google does this to see if you have left instructions for googlebot on what to do when it visits your site. The best advice is to ignore the 404 errors it gives has they will not harm your site and not put a robots file unless you need to do so.

IMO GA is the best stats on the market and you should use it.

[Runner]

cgi-bin/anyimage looks as though your hard coding image paths into your pages, without thinking that the actual page is not always served from the acatalog folder.

Thanks for the replies. What do you mean by 'hard coding without thinking the actual page is not always served from acatalog folder'?

[jont]

Some of the pages come from cgi-bin/ and not acatalog/ .... if you do hard code you should provide the full link http://www. site.com/acatlog/image.gif

[Runner]

I think I know what you mean by 'hard code' now. E.g. putting an image link in a fragment??

I have coded images with the following path /images/theimage.jpg so that expalins that. I will fix by adding the full path.

other 404 errors are showing //theimage.jpg

What does the // mean?

[jont]

What does the // mean?

Look at the URL in a web browser .. it is required to point the browser to the page on the remote server and not locally. At the moment you are using relative paths and not absolute paths.