Can vBSEO help me to have private forums spidered?

[eJM]

My forums are for consumers and pros. The pros have asked that their forums be made private -- the visitors can see the forum list, but cannot enter the private forums, only the consumer forums. This would hide a great deal of content. Can the product help me to configure access for spiders and still prevent visitors and members from gaining access.

I realize if, say, Google linked to a private page the visitor with no membership to the usergroup would get an error page. I would have to set up a redirect to apply to that usergroup for access. Right?

What's the lowdown on that? Thanks for the support.

[Keith Cohen]

Hello!

Search engines can only access forums that are visible to guests on your site.

Modifying a site to allow spiders to see content that is different than what guests see could be considered "cloaking" and can get you in trouble with search engines.

Not to mention, if you did modify your site to allow that type of access, your private content would then be visible to anyone who used the search engine and viewed the cached copies they keep on-hand.

[Ace Shattock]

Originally Posted by Keith Cohen

Not to mention, if you did modify your site to allow that type of access, your private content would then be visible to anyone who used the search engine and viewed the cached copies they keep on-hand.

Or, anyone clever enough to make their browser use the Useragent of a spider.

[briansol]

there's a mod on vb.org that makes spiders act as a member group.

You would then be able to set it to a certain level, so it stays out of your staff forums, but will be able to spider the other groups levels.

be careful though, as your content will then be public, as all they have to do is click on the cached link right from google.

[theChronic]

Hey, do you by chance know the name of that hack / mod?

Thanks!
John

[briansol]

Member Bots 1.0 - Allow bots to act as members - vBulletin.org Forum

[eJM]

I've decided it's not worth the risk. I have a number of forums that will, I hope, have sufficient content to sustain the spiders. The private forums have been set up so that visitors can see the list of threads, but can't read them. I will encourage members to choose descriptive titles so that we can get a little action from the bots anyway.

Thanks for the replies.