How to prevent Google from indexing specific forum?

[Zer0 Key]

I have a category which I want Google not to index, nor ANY threads inside it! I need help how to do that.

I am currently using Google SEO if that means something.

Thank you.

[Stevenowenboss]

I guess you can use the noindex meta tag, or block the google bot with robots.txt file?

[Zer0 Key]

How do I do that with robots.txt? What is the "regex" expression of the threads in specific forum?

[danydoe]

How do I do that with robots.txt? What is the "regex" expression of the threads in specific forum?

create txt file named robots.txt , put this line into it:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /youforumname/

if for example your full forum url is: mybbforum.com
and you want to noindex : mybbforum.com/forum-1.html

then change "/yourforumname/" from the above example to "/forum-1.html"

upload the robots.txt file to your mybb roots directory (the directory where you install mybb)

There is a tool to create robots txt:
http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/search-engine/robots-txt.asp

hope that help

[Zer0 Key]

Yeah, I already tried that, but it only blocks that specific forum from being indexed, it doesn't block any threads into it... :/

[Stefan C.]

Could just create a usergroup specifically for search spiders and then change it's permissions to what you want google and other search engines to see.

[danydoe]

You want to no index specifik thread, I missed that point.

You need to modify your url structure to include category name within thread url.

[Arbaz]

Could just create a usergroup specifically for search spiders and then change it's permissions to what you want google and other search engines to see.

This is the easiest and the best way in my opinion.

Here are the instructions.

Step # 1

Go to ACP>Users & Groups>Groups>Add New User Group>Copy Permissions from Guest.

Name it anything you want. I would use "Bots" for example.

Step # 2

Go to ACP>Configuration>Spiders/Bots>Google>Edit Bot>User Group>Bots

Step # 3

Go to ACP>Forums & Posts>Forum Management>FORUM NAME>Permissions

Set the custom permissions for your spiders/bots by customizing the permissions for the bots group. In your case, you would untick "Can view threads" and "Can view forum" in forum settings.

[Corey H]

You should be able to disable bots via ACP. Delete them, I've did it and never had a problem.
ACP>Configuration>Spiders / Bots

[Arbaz]

You should be able to disable bots via ACP. Delete them, I've did it and never had a problem.
ACP>Configuration>Spiders / Bots

The OP wants to disallow bots from accessing a certain forum, not the whole board.