Can Search Engines Index Private Discussions/Group Messages?

r0obert

I'm trying to decide whether or not I should open up my community. I've got a lot of private things that should remain that way.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

v2.1

peregrine

if you can't read a category (custom category) when you are not logged in

search engines see things as if they were a guest in the guest role.

peregrine

as an aside - not your question.

@linc also wrote a plugin called noindex

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/noindex-plugin

I haven't used it - I believe it "suggests to search engines not to index" for specific discussions but that would be a suggestion. The search engine may not respect the suggestion, even though one hopes it would.

you could google this "noindex+html+is+it+obeyed"

And suggestions are not always followed, otherwise everyone would be posting their version of vanilla when asking troubleshooting questions.

Linc

I would block the entire site via a robots.txt file if you want to keep all of it out of search indexes.

Personally, my sites all have a "Members-Only" category that is invisible until you sign in. That's a place to file the semi-private things you don't want showing up in Google.

r0obert

@Linc I think that's exactly what I would like to accomplish. I just need 1 category to be invisible to search engines. It has custom permissions (guest cannot see it) - will that be enough to keep it out of search indexes?

If not, I was thinking maybe I could move that category (contents) in a private message/conversation and just include all users that have permissions to that. Would that accomplish anything or is it enough that's its already invisible to guests - as @peregrine suggested?

Thanks!

peregrine

@Linc I think that's exactly what I would like to accomplish. I just need 1 category to be invisible to search engines. It has custom permissions (guest cannot see it) - will that be enough to keep it out of search indexes?

will that be enough to keep it out of search indexes?

I think we both already confirmed and stated "Yes"