The robots.txt file on any site is how search engines discover what a site wants indexed and what it doesn’t.
Generally you won’t find many people checking the files unless they’re technically minded, passionate about SEO and curious. The Daily Mail of all sites thought it would be an ingenious idea to place a job advert in the file and SEO consultant Malcolm Coles discovered it.
This is most likely the work of The Mail Online’s MD James Bromley.
I’m rather impressed…The Daily Mail thinking well outside of the box.
lol, i like that, but seems he saw it some days later
No, I sat on it for a week so as not to spoil it.
But it forgets to mention that you must also be a climate sceptic and a borderline racist to work there. I guess that’s in the full job description :)
Yep, just an ordinary human being capable of reason and thought and not a reactionary sheep is all that’s needed.
So brillant ! I love this !
Good way to create a buzz for a website!
I think the practice of publishing text where nobody will see is is one the Mail should wholeheartedly embrace.
+100pts
Wow, no way dude that is just too cool!
Lou
http://www.anonymity.th.tc
Haha long before all you SEO guys suddenly started looking at robot files, they were only checked by spiders, hackers/online security fellas and web admins. So what does this mean they need a guy that can do all those jobs (spider excluded)?
excellent idea !!! good buzz for Daily Mail !!!
awesome thats great
Low cost ad, you don’t even need to get the design team involved
Go away or I shall replace you with a very small shell script.
Pretty smart tactic, but don’t you have to worry about a guy that is looking at your robot.txt file to begin with.
Very nice way to find just the right candidate. Hopefully they got a few good CV’s in before Malcom spoiled their plan and unleashed a flood of SEO wannabes to Holly’s inbox. Great find, Malcom
Kudos to them for making use of the robots.txt file. Nice job and interesting post boy short
Kudos to them for making use of the robots.txt file. Nice job and interesting post boy short
Very clever
Looking at a robots.txt file does not make you a tech-god. If someone has the time to waste or is bored (or a kid attempting to pull a “hack” on unprotected directories), will attempt to go through the robots.txt file. Usually, some people do hide jokes in those files but all-in-all its a pretty dumb move.
It has become fairly common knowledge what a robots.txt file is used for, anyways. Almost everyone has a damn site, my neighbour’s 10 year old has his own website (on dogs? wtf, he doesn’t even own one) and uses google webmaster tools to generate his robots.txt.
If you tell me you don’t know what a robots.txt file is in our overly computer/web dependent society, then, tell me where you are? …because I’m moving in.
that DB must stand for Douche Bag, because that’s about all I got out of your post. Yes we’re very technologically/internet dependent, but not everyone understands how everything, or anything works. You should have have prefixed it with a P for pretentious
“that DB must stand for Douche Bag”
Wow, very creative. I see how you used a feminine hygiene product as an insult towards me.
By the way, please learn the english language. “Pretentious” is a word on its own and cannot be applied as a “prefix”.
I’m sure your parents must be proud.
What’s more interesting is that Seo would require a manager.
No Big Deal, Life Insurance Quote
Dear Editor in Chief,
“Their” means belongs to them, whereas “They’re” means they are.
Good luck with that.
that is something you dont see everyday. dont you just love eccentric people?
SO all seo aspirants will start checking robot.txt of their dream company’s sites???!!
:)
wow that is some creative way to post a job.
not new, try this website, trademe.co.nz and look at their ‘page source’ in ‘view’ options in your browser
Oh yeah! the above website has it in their HTML source code as well..ha
Great idea! It’s like hiding a librarian job opening in a dusty old book!
DIGG Sucks
Xing.com did a similar thing a (long) while back where they advertised a front end web dev role via console.log(). Very creative :)
Geek cleverness. Love it. Planning my SEO message
Very clever – I can see a new requirement for robots.txt monitoring software – unless it exists already!
Talented SEOs work for themselves. I never get why someone would want to work for anyone else?
Disallow: /home/ireland/
Disallow: /home/scotland/
I guess you have to be from the rest of the world then :)
Great innovation :P
Great innovation :P
very nice article
http://www.hedeya.net