Creating a redirect at the Apache Level?

[critter]

Good Day to ALL!

Quick question.

On one of my client websites which is hosted on a Apache Server, the GoogleBot has somehow found a way to reference a file which the client claims doesn't exist and never did exist.

Besides the point that I don't see how googlebot could index a page that is not linked from anywhere and doesn't exist, we don't want all this activity on a dead-page.

Is it ok from an SEO perspective to create an alia as the Apache level, almost like a redirect on the server level? We would redirect using this alias to the appropriate webpage.

Thanks

CRITTER

[Shane]

I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want to 301 this URL to an appropriate substitute for what Google's looking for since that URL doesn't exist.

[GOTseo]

Are you getting alot of entry on this page? This page has to exist if it has been indexed. I suggest a 301 redirect, then put the file in the robots.txt file

[Michael Martinez]

I have seen that happen when I had a broken (incomplete) link. Both Google and Inktomi used to crawl such links.

It would be best if the client ran a search across their source documents to see if they do indeed have a broken link before asserting a redirect.

[NevDull]

You could also check for hits to that non-existant document in the server logs, and see what the referer is... helps find an incorrect link from someone else's site.