Test Servers vs Live Servers

[alexis.edwin]

Hi

is there any difference between test servers and live servers

if there is any difference, what will be the consequences on SEO

Regards

Alexis

[Blue]

A "test" server would be one that mirrors the configuration of the software of the "live" server that a site will eventually reside on on the Internet. It does not necessarily need to be connected to the Internet.

SEO wise, as long as the test server utilizes the same OS and parses the HTML the same way the live server does, it should have no ill effects.

For instance I have a Windows machine that runs my live servers OS (a version of Apache/*nix), is not Internet connected, that I test and develop sites on.

[WebSavvy]

If the test server is connected to the Internet, it'd be best if the area was either pass protected or robots.txt disallowed to prevent bots from accessing the area.

I've purchased a few domains that are used only for development and yet, even without those domains being linked to from anywhere google, msn, and yahoo still come calling daily. They've had to be blocked.

FYI, it's not a case of a "pre-owned" domain either. As it's a completely made up word like floozaphonica.com (you get the idea).

[SEFL]

I usually get around this issue by not pointing any domains to my test server. I only point domains to my live server, and use localhost/(whatever) for my test sites. I then upload the good stuff to the live site once it's ready for prime time.

I also have a private IP address on my live server which I have bot-blocked (for obvious reasons, it's going to stay private) and this allows me to show the site to clients without making it go live itself. When I need it to go live, I just point the domain(s) to the same folder and away I go.

[g1smd]

All pages on a development server get noindex,nofollow added programatically if the site is open to public view.

Often the whole site will be hidden behind a password log-in if it is internet connected.

Most often though, the test site will be on an offline machine with Apache and PHP installed.