Private forum - guest showing

[meets]

Hi there, this might be a numpty question, but here goes anyway.

I run a very small forum, which I have set totally private (i.e. only members can view / post etc. and password protected).

But many times when I look at Users online a number of guests seem to be on the site as well. When I compare IP addresses with users who are on / or have recently been on - some of them match, but others don't. Some of my members seem quite worried about it though and I would like to be able to totally put their mind at ease.

Thank you.

[Trill]

Hi,

Those guests may be search engine crawlers or people who had just stumbled upon your forum. They can only see what normal guests can see. Anything hidden to guests or password protected cannot be seen by search engine bots or people viewing your forum. If your forum is set to Guests Must Login, then these guests will only see the login screen.

[meets]

That's what I thought. Thank you.

[Trill]

You're welcome

[liviainwonderland]

I'm very sorry to bump this thread but I'm having the same problem.
I have the "guest must log in" as "yes" and you said when the guests will only be seeing the login screen. the problem I have is that me and the guest will be the only ones on the site and on one of the message board, it's writing "1 viewing" if it's not me and the guest can't see... who's seeing my board?

[Craig]

Hi,

It will record that even if they get an error message because it is logged when the page is requested.

If you have your fourm set to guests must login, then no guest will see anything on your forum except for the login [ and associated, eg register] pages

[liviainwonderland]

hey, thanks for replying

does this mean that there's an error and that no one is really viewing one of my boards?

[Craig]

That's correct.