User-agent: zombies

Disallow: /brains

The Google robots.txt file on Friday begins with the following exclusion:

(Via Matt Cutts.)

Google, whose servers constantly crawl the Web, doesn’t have anything against spiders. But zombies, well, that’s another matter.

(Credit:
CNET News)

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.

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?

Google's robots.txt file wards off brains-devouring zombies.