favicon.ico robots.txt 404 on my buisness.

[Sarcle]

Hello, I'm new to large scale websites and was reading the logs today. What are the robots.txt and favicon.ico and why do they get hit a million times and get a 404 error.

I was reading the favicon.ico has something to do with the browser and bookmarking, does that mean people can't bookmark or what? I have no idea. I would like to know how to correct this or if it needs correcting.

I also assume that the robots.txt is from search spiders, but should I re-route them to the home-page or just leave them be? Thanks for your time.

Sarcle.

[websitedeveloper]

does that mean people can't bookmark or what?

they can still bookmark. The Favicon.ico is an icon image. So when they do bookmark your site, it just means there will be a pretty icon next to the description of your site e.g. http://www.google.com.au/favicon.ico

robots.txt is not required unless you do not want certain pages/sections to be indexed - if the many 404 errors annoy you, just upload a blank text document called robots.txt

[Sarcle]

Thanks I appreciate it.

I'll do the robot.txt page, can you add keywords on that page and will it get indexed?

[websitedeveloper]

you're welcome

the robots.txt file does not work like that... here is a site all about it: http://www.robotstxt.org/

[Sarcle]

okay, thanks for the link, will make some coffee and read. cheers