Will these type of 403 errors affect my ranking?

Question

Let's say I have a directory that has a 403 forbidden error for all of the content in it, however a few of the images in its subdirectories return a normal 200 status. Will this fact affect my ranking?

For example:

• test.com/system/ returns 403 for all files
• test.com/system/pie/ returns 403 for all files
• test.com/system/pie/image.png does not return 403, and this image is embedded on publicly accessible page

This sort of pattern repeats for about 10 different images. This directory is like a secret "system", however all of the content on the main site is still accessible to everyone from the public.

Answer 1

If you're returning a 403 forbidden error for those directories, why not just prevent search engines from following links to these locations and assigning NOINDEX?

You can still allow exceptions to this by allowing sub directories or images to be indexed if they are linked to from other pages that are indexed.

What rankings are you concerned about? test.com (as per your example) will be fine as there is nothing of any value to a search engine that they wish to index returning errors or vice versa.