be able to crawl the entire forum or will the bots be stopped at the front door?
I want to make my forums available to members only but at the same time I don't want to keep Google out.
Appreciate any advice, thanks
One... no, you can't do that. Unless you modify the software to detect SE's and let them in, but deny all other guests.
Two... It's against Google policies to do that.
Search Engines
must see, what any other regular visitor is supposed to see.
So it's bad SEO to do such a thing, and will actually do more harm than good in regards to search engine rankings.
Three... wrong forum, bub. Belongs in the Web Administration forum.
(2010-08-08, 06:18 AM)Ryan Ashbrook Wrote: [ -> ]One... no, you can't do that. Unless you modify the software to detect SE's and let them in, but deny all other guests.
Two... It's against Google policies to do that.
Search Engines must see, what any other regular visitor is supposed to see.
So it's bad SEO to do such a thing, and will actually do more harm than good in regards to search engine rankings.
Three... wrong forum, bub. Belongs in the Web Administration forum.
Sorry about the wrong forum Ryan, still learning my way around here.
How do membership sites get away with it?
Like facebook, you cant see anything unless you become a member.
___________________________________
Forget what I just said, I had another brain fart..lol
I re-read what you wrote,
Quote:Unless you modify the software to detect SE's and let them in, but deny all other guests.
Thanks for the heads up Ryan
(2010-08-08, 06:57 AM)IdiotDomainer Wrote: [ -> ] (2010-08-08, 06:18 AM)Ryan Ashbrook Wrote: [ -> ]One... no, you can't do that. Unless you modify the software to detect SE's and let them in, but deny all other guests.
Two... It's against Google policies to do that.
Search Engines must see, what any other regular visitor is supposed to see.
So it's bad SEO to do such a thing, and will actually do more harm than good in regards to search engine rankings.
Three... wrong forum, bub. Belongs in the Web Administration forum.
Sorry about the wrong forum Ryan, still learning my way around here.
How do membership sites get away with it?
Like facebook, you cant see anything unless you become a member.
You can stop guests from viewing forums and content by going to your AdminCP - Forums & Posts - Select the forums you don't want guests to see and change the permission settings so Guests can't view the forums.
If you completely want to stop guests going on the site, you can make it so people HAVE to login or register before being redirected to the index page.
I can't remember how to do that though.
No one would want join the forum if they do not know what is inside right? :s
I've gotta tell you, that is a really stupid idea.
(2010-08-08, 07:17 AM)iGeorge Wrote: [ -> ]You can stop guests from viewing forums and content by going to your AdminCP - Forums & Posts - Select the forums you don't want guests to see and change the permission settings so Guests can't view the forums.
If you completely want to stop guests going on the site, you can make it so people HAVE to login or register before being redirected to the index page.
I can't remember how to do that though.
Thanks,
I knew how to do it, I just wanted to know would it keep the bots out as well.
I don't want to keep the bots out.
(2010-08-08, 07:19 AM)darkly Wrote: [ -> ]No one would want join the forum if they do not know what is inside right? :s
You can still let them know what the forum is about.
(2010-08-08, 07:20 AM)CAwesome Wrote: [ -> ]I've gotta tell you, that is a really stupid idea.
No, its not that stupid.
It all depends on what your reasons are.
At the end of the day, It's the owner's decision
Best of luck.
Offtopic: ohai darkly ;x
(2010-08-08, 06:57 AM)IdiotDomainer Wrote: [ -> ]How do membership sites get away with it?
Like facebook, you cant see anything unless you become a member.
They don't, you can only google for what is publicly visible.
(2010-08-08, 06:57 AM)IdiotDomainer Wrote: [ -> ]I re-read what you wrote,
Quote:Unless you modify the software to detect SE's and let them in, but deny all other guests.
Thanks for the heads up Ryan
Remember though that if you let search engines in but not people then visitors who want to read a page can just google the page and view the search engine cache.