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View Full Version : Do 'deny' permissions on forums stop robots?


BusinessIdeas
12th May 2009, 20:49
I have recently taken away permission for guests to see sections of my forum for obvious reasons.
Will this stop robots from indexing those pages?

david64
12th May 2009, 20:55
You'd have to provide us more info, like what forum script you are using and what your site is.

I have seen some forum scripts that will let Google index the hidden forum threads, but they will not be accessible by general weebies. This is usually when a forum wants to entice people in.

BusinessIdeas
12th May 2009, 21:03
Its smf 1.1.8 and the clue is in my sig :)

david64
12th May 2009, 21:08
I am guessing that the answer is yes, if you look at the Google cache for your site:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:NpyRzMTKETQJ:www.businessideasandop portunities.co.uk/index.php+http://www.businessideasandopportunities.co.uk/index.php&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

You will see that there is a number of groups that are there that you can't see on your site otherwise.

So Google is indexing these.

To get further assistance you will need to check out the SMF support forums. Should be simple to do what you want.

I know that a lot of forums will allow Google to index certain posts, but then use the no archive meta tag so people can't actually see the post without signing up or whatever they have to do.