Preventing Google Bots

[debbiebdebbie]

Quick question.....

I am creating a forum with ProBoards and the subject matter of the forum is sensitive to members. I want to ensure, that while registration is necessary to access the forum, that google can not bot the forum so that page views are available for anyone who is savvy to pull up in a google (or other search engine) search. 

I know that just because registration is necessary that means nothing to a bot and page view WILL be made available with a websearch.

Is there a way to ensure the forum is not botted?

[Patrick [ASE]]

Google bots only see what a guest can see, so if the sensitive boards can only be seen by members, then bots will not be able to see or cache that information.
Sure, you'll possibly see guests that are from google, yahoo etc, but they are not seeing private boards.
easy way to check, log out (or use a different browser) and view one of your private boards

[debbiebdebbie]

Mar 19, 2013 13:55:20 GMT -8 Patrick [ASE] said:

Google bots only see what a guest can see, so if the sensitive boards can only be seen by members, then bots will not be able to see or cache that information.
Sure, you'll possibly see guests that are from google, yahoo etc, but they are not seeing private boards.
easy way to check, log out (or use a different browser) and view one of your private boards

 Yeah, I get that you can log out and then you shouldn't be able to see the forum or any posts. But that does not mean google can not necessarily bot the site. What I want to know is if it is made private are the proboards settings set to include a robot.txt file that specifically tells a bot they may not index the site? Just because the site is private (as in, requiring registration to view it) does not mean google won't bot it.

[Michael]

Mar 19, 2013 14:00:09 GMT -8 debbiebdebbie said:

Mar 19, 2013 13:55:20 GMT -8 Patrick [ASE] said:

Google bots only see what a guest can see, so if the sensitive boards can only be seen by members, then bots will not be able to see or cache that information.
Sure, you'll possibly see guests that are from google, yahoo etc, but they are not seeing private boards.
easy way to check, log out (or use a different browser) and view one of your private boards

 Yeah, I get that you can log out and then you shouldn't be able to see the forum or any posts. But that does not mean google can not necessarily bot the site. What I want to know is if it is made private are the proboards settings set to include a robot.txt file that specifically tells a bot they may not index the site? Just because the site is private (as in, requiring registration to view it) does not mean google won't bot it.

If the forum is set to "Guests Must Login" then Google bots cannot crawl the forum.