October 31, 2008 8:10 AM PDT
Google jokesters ward off zombies
Google's robots.txt file wards off brains-devouring zombies.
(Credit: CNET News)Google, whose servers constantly crawl the Web, doesn't have anything against spiders. But zombies, well, that's another matter.
Showing some timely techie humor, the search giant updated its robots.txt file for Halloween. For the uninitiated, search engines trying to index Web sites look for robots.txt files for instructions about whether they're permitted access to particular pages.
The Google robots.txt file on Friday begins with the following exclusion:
User-agent: zombies
Disallow: /brains
Most of the time when people do this sort of thing it's called an Easter egg. Is there such a thing as a Halloween egg?
(Via Matt Cutts.)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
404: www.google.com/brains - does not exist
@usualsuspect87 - probably the guy at Google who did it told a few friends. Haven't checked my Google Reader yet today, but I assume it's already on Google Operating System.