whois lookup and guests

[stewie22]

Forum URL: Grey-members.com

Hi Helpers I read in some part of proboards, of a sitecalled ( Whois lookup) and thought I would try it and see who or where all my guests come from and those I have looked at are from Google & Microsoft is there a way to block them?

Thanks Stewie22

[Former Member]

Hello stewie22,

If your forum is viewable to guests, you will have visitors known as web scrapers from organizations like the ones you mentioned. These web scrapers will "scrape" or gather information from your forum to enhance your forum's SEO presence.

The only way to block guests from viewing your forum would be to turn on the Guest Must Login setting through your admin panel > setting > forum settings > login & registration.

If you do turn on Guest Must Login, you will be removing yourself from being part of any search engine because you're blocking access from potential web scrapers.

For more information about SEO, you can view our Help Guide article Understanding SEO.

[stewie22]

Feb 5, 2019 17:16:09 GMT -8 @kelvin said:

Hello stewie22 ,

If your forum is viewable to guests, you will have visitors known as web scrapers from organizations like the ones you mentioned. These web scrapers will "scrape" or gather information from your forum to enhance your forum's SEO presence.

The only way to block guests from viewing your forum would be to turn on the Guest Must Login setting through your admin panel > setting > forum settings > login & registration.

If you do turn on Guest Must Login, you will be removing yourself from being part of any search engine because you're blocking access from potential web scrapers.

For more information about SEO, you can view our Help Guide article Understanding SEO.

Thanks Kevin I don't want to block out guests and other than wondering why we have so many guests which you have explained I guess I can live with seeing so many

Thanks for your reply

Stewie22

[bigballofyarn]

Feb 6, 2019 2:33:25 GMT -8 stewie22 said:

Thanks Kevin I don't want to block out guests and other than wondering why we have so many guests which you have explained I guess I can live with seeing so many

Thanks for your reply

Stewie22

You may also get some guests from Proboards Support. I know I tend to click everyone's links when I'm viewing their Support threads. So, there could be some humans among the bots.

[vanwoman]

Also, I think that some of the Google and MSN bots are triggered by searches.
Often I see a Google IP followed by a genuine visitor.
As for searching for the origin of an IP, I hilite and search, or you can copy and paste the IP into google. This will bring up a list of IP information sites. Some are more detailed than others.

[Retread]

Feb 6, 2019 2:33:25 GMT -8 stewie22 said:

Feb 5, 2019 17:16:09 GMT -8 @kelvin said:

Hello stewie22 ,

If your forum is viewable to guests, you will have visitors known as web scrapers from organizations like the ones you mentioned. These web scrapers will "scrape" or gather information from your forum to enhance your forum's SEO presence.

The only way to block guests from viewing your forum would be to turn on the Guest Must Login setting through your admin panel > setting > forum settings > login & registration.

If you do turn on Guest Must Login, you will be removing yourself from being part of any search engine because you're blocking access from potential web scrapers.

For more information about SEO, you can view our Help Guide article Understanding SEO.

Thanks Kevin I don't want to block out guests and other than wondering why we have so many guests which you have explained I guess I can live with seeing so many

Thanks for your reply

Stewie22

Hey stewie22 the google bots are a good sign. Could mean more people will get search results that lead to content on your forum when they do searches. Many will just read but a few might become members on your forum if they like what they read.

Definitely take a look at that help guide article to which @kelvin linked. You might find other ways of optimizing your forum's presence on search results.

[stewie22]

Feb 6, 2019 8:22:55 GMT -8 Retread said:

Feb 6, 2019 2:33:25 GMT -8 stewie22 said:

Thanks Kevin I don't want to block out guests and other than wondering why we have so many guests which you have explained I guess I can live with seeing so many

Thanks for your reply

Stewie22

Hey stewie22 the google bots are a good sign. Could mean more people will get search results that lead to content on your forum when they do searches. Many will just read but a few might become members on your forum if they like what they read.

Definitely take a look at that help guide article to which @kelvin linked. You might find other ways of optimizing your forum's presence on search results.

bigballofyarn Thanks I do the same in the hopes of learning more

vanwoman Thanks for the hints something else for me to look into

Retread  Thanks Retread your replies always give me something to work on and if all those Guests lead to more Members that's great goodness knows I can use them  lol