HTML Author's Guide to the Parasites Inclusion Protocol home full specification overview admin protocol guide authors protocol guide admin meta tag guide authors meta tag guide

Authors Guide to Parasite Inclusion

This guide is aimed at HTML Authors who want to use the Parasites Inclusion Protocol.

The Parasites Inclusion Protocol requires that instructions are placed in a URL "/parasites.txt", i.e. in the top-level of your domain's document space.

Note that this is not a specification -- for details and formal syntax and definition see the specification.

Where to create the Parasites.txt file

If you rent space for your HTML files on the server of your Internet Service Provider, or another third party, you are usually not allowed to install or modify files in the top-level of the server's document space.

This means that to use the Parasites Inclusion Protocol, you have to liaise with the server administrator, and get him/her add the rules to the "/parasites.txt", using the Web Server Administrator's Guide to the Parasites Inclusion Protocol.

There is no way around this -- specifically, there is no point in providing your own "/parasites.txt" files elsewhere on the server, like in your home directory or subdirectories; Parasites won't look for them, and even if they did find them, they wouldn't pay attention to the rules there.

Frankly, it probably doesn't matter where you put parasites.txt. They will probably ignore it.

If your administrator is unwilling to install or modify "/parasites.txt" rules on your behalf, you can add a Parasites Meta Tag to all pages you don't want abused. Note this functionality is not currently implemented by any spying advertising Parasites.