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Ask YC: Online demo url

9 points by wonjun ↗ HN
We just read that YC prefers an obscure demo url that is not password protected, and we have the following options.

http://56.34.433.32

- url to our development server

- This is safe without a password protection, but it is less reliable and I have to keep my computer on until YC reviews our demo.

http://www.demo.com/obscure, or http://www.obscure.com

- url to our production server

- Although direct hits aren't likely, without a password protection, we are concerned that they will become accessible from search engines.

How did you guys handle this problem, and what would be the most appropriate form of the obscure demo url?

Thank you very much, and good luck to you all!

10 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 45.1 ms ] thread
gscott
> we are concerned that they will become accessible from search engines.

Add a robots.txt so the site doesn't get indexed.

User-agent: * Disallow: /

wonjun
Thanks a lot, that's a great solution!
tipjoy
You could also use a non-standard port. We are.
wonjun
That's another great solution. Thanks a lot!
nextmoveone
Wonjun..that's a very unique name...I know a kid named Wonjun in real life. I never thought I'd see a second.
gqgy
i know a wonjun on yc news and a couple in real life.
wonjun
That's about the 6th or 7th Wonjun I've encountered in my life.
jackdied
First, your post would have been comedy gold if those had been real demo URLs.

Second, consider making the demo launch a POST from the landing URL. That should stop the crawlers you won't have in the first place.

wonjun
yeah, that would've been a disaster. Thanks a lot for your suggestion.
mwerty
An obscure query string.