Hiding forum from search engine spiders

[Oli-3]

Hey all,

I'm aware that nabble's forums are optimized for search engine access. As it happens, I'd like the opposite to be the case for my forum, which is intended for a limited community only and thus should keep a low profile.

Also, I'm wondering if there's any way for me to control membership, i.e. can I keep uninvited visitors from registering as members of my forum?

I'd very much appreciate any help!

greetz,
Oli

[John Yeoman]

I have the identical query. I want to keep Google and the other engines out of my forums. They contain proprietary material. Short of putting an ugly password screen in front of the entire page, or blocking the forums off so that nobody can see even the category names, there seems no way of keeping unwelcome visitors out.

Hugo was recently promising us a way to block spiders from our forums, or selected sub-forums. I welcome it!

[Hugo <Nabble>]

John Yeoman wrote

Hugo was recently promising us a way to block spiders from our forums, or selected sub-forums. I welcome it!

Yes, this will be implemented soon. But note that visitors will still be able to view the contents if your forum allows so. The way we will block crawlers is that we will add a tag to the HTML source like this:

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">

So bots will see this tag and won't index the contents. If you want to block all visitors, then you have to select that only members can view the forum in the "Options > Users > Who can view & post?" page. Is that ok for you?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Oli-3 wrote

I'm aware that nabble's forums are optimized for search engine access. As it happens, I'd like the opposite to be the case for my forum, which is intended for a limited community only and thus should keep a low profile.

Yes, this will be implemented soon.

Oli-3 wrote

Also, I'm wondering if there's any way for me to control membership, i.e. can I keep uninvited visitors from registering as members of my forum?

Here we have an article that explains how this can be done on Nabble:
http://n2.nabble.com/help/Answer.jtp?id=20

[Oli-3]

Hey,

Thanks for the answer! I'm very much looking forward to your offering the noindex meta tag option =) w00t

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

 If you want to block all visitors, then you have to select that only members can view the forum in the "Options > Users > Who can view & post?" page. Is that ok for you?

Well, this was the first step I took and it's been a good start. However, my community desires even greater privacy. It's not just about who can view but who can become a member. After all, anybody could still join the forum and then view all its contents. Ideally, I'd like to use a kind of white list for membership control, so only a few select individuals can join, while pretty much the rest of the internet remains shut out. I know this level of exclusivity isn't what most people are looking for, but I'm afraid that in this case, it's a must. Any way of making it real?

Thanks a great bunch in advance,
Oli

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Oli-3 wrote

Well, this was the first step I took and it's been a good start. However, my community desires even greater privacy. It's not just about who can view but who can become a member. After all, anybody could still join the forum and then view all its contents. Ideally, I'd like to use a kind of white list for membership control, so only a few select individuals can join, while pretty much the rest of the internet remains shut out. I know this level of exclusivity isn't what most people are looking for, but I'm afraid that in this case, it's a must. Any way of making it real?

I think you misunderstood how Nabble works. We have this feature you want, so let me explain it. If you go to "Options > Users > Who can view & post?" and select that only members can view the forum, you will block strangers and they won't be able to get in until you approve their request to join the forum. If a non-member tries to visit your forum, he/she will see a forum to request you permission to join. They will only become a member if you approve their request. You receive an email when someone requests such permission. Please try that and let me know if you have questions, comments or concerns.

[Oli-3]

Oh, excellent! If that does, fair 'nuff!

Thx again!

[Harvey]

I am having a brain freeze.  

I know that this feature is in place  - to hide or show a forum to the search engines.

I found it once already and put my forum in "hide" mode while we were working out the formatting and custom domain issues.

I am getting close to being ready to open it up and I can't seem to find the switch to let the search engines in.

Anybody know where it is? I did try the help section and I did search the support forum.

[Harvey]

Brain freeze over. I found it.

It's under Options > Editor > Change Appearance.

About halfway down the page, it's a checkbox under "Extra Features."