.htaccess rules redirecting robots.txt file

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

The htaccess file seems to be redirecting a call to robots.txt to the index page of the site. This isn't good...cause I can't convince google that we HAVE no robots file. So it thinks the index page IS the robots file. Is there a way to SPECIFICALLY send /robots.txt to /robots.txt ?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Is there a real robots.txt? In older stores when the NTFD page first came about, it used to serve a 200 status for not found requests that were mapped to the store, like what you'd do with URI management. You would want to check that, and that it's returning the right status, or perhaps just create a robots.txt. If there is one and it's still doing the redirect, then there's something not right in the htaccess.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

There WAS no robots file. But google said there was, cause calling the site with /robots.txt generates a valid 200 return...however, when I put a REAL robots.txt file in the directory, it still gives the HOME page, not the REAL robots file. And yes, I assume there is something wrong with the htaccess...its old, stupidly complex, but can't get rid of it because of ...well, store owners.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

I'd figure that out asap because it's probably serving 200's for other invalid content too, and who knows what it's serving instead of what should be served if it's showing the home page instead of a valid file.

[AHerb]

I would start from adding

#checking requested file is more than 0 bytes
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s  
# optional, checking requested file is not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

in front of the RewriteRule's

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Thanks, but those tests are in there.

[AHerb]

Oh, that's getting interesting.
Did you try to remove htaccess completely to make sure it works at all? I know, that sounds stupid, but I had a situation when you could write whatever you wanted in the htaccess as it was disabled in the apache config.