Topic: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
Hi
In I.P.B. there is a option to assign GoogleBot and other bots as a member. How can I do the same in PunBB?
Thanks in advance.
Regards
1 2006-06-26 21:57 (edited by falconflyz 2006-06-26 23:28)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
Why would you like to do this, may I ask?
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- hcgtv
- Senior Member
- Offline
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
I guess some boards are read only to members?
If so, why let GoogleBot have access to it?
4 2006-06-27 02:21 (edited by falconflyz 2006-06-27 02:23)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
pogenwurst wrote:
Why would you like to do this, may I ask?
Simply I wish that the pages of my forums are indexed in Google, but that when a guest come on the forum, he has to register to have access for reading it.
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
falconflyz wrote:
pogenwurst wrote:Why would you like to do this, may I ask?
Simply I wish that the pages of my forums are indexed in Google, but that when a guest come on the forum, he has to register to have access for reading it.
That's called cloaking, and it's quite controversial. I guess someone might implement it as a mod, but I seriously doubt Rickard would add such a feature.
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Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
Oh it is not Cloaking: the content presented to the Bot is not different from that presented to the members.
You can see how it is possible to handel this function with I.P.B on this screen:
http://punbbmania.byethost16.com/screens/admin.html
Regards
- Reines
- Senior Member
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Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
It would be a good idea for a mod, but not an official feature.
It could also have some security issues if you were granting member access to anyone with "googlebot" in their user-agent (since user-agents are amazingly easy to spoof, and I presume there would be some reason for having your boards not accessible to guests in the first place).
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
I don't bother registering on websitet that force me to do soo. If I'm not lucky on http://www.bugmenot.com/ I usually pass...
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
There is nothing secret on boards since I wish that content is on Google. If inscription is free, everybody can register, even with a free and anonymous email, and then see the contents of messages. Simply I think the slightest of courtesy is to register and be identified when going on a forum.
Furthermore it allows administrators of the forum having more precise statistics.
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
falconflyz wrote:
Oh it is not Cloaking: the content presented to the Bot is not different from that presented to the members.
You can see how it is possible to handel this function with I.P.B on this screen:
http://punbbmania.byethost16.com/screens/admin.html
Whether you call it cloaking or not, it still sounds a bit shady to me. But whatever, if you don't have a problem with it neither do I.
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Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
@falconflyz, FYI you can get blacklisted on Google for such things..
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
@falconflyz, FYI you can get blacklisted on Google for such things..
I am happy to learn it, although I do not see where is the fraud in relation to Google. But then I do not understand why this function is standard on Invision Power Board. It would be really unconvincing that this society puts on in offence with the rules of Google.
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
You are serving one page to the google and the other for the reuglar surfer -> that's cloacking. Mind the fact that you show the same thing to the registered user.
Mind me for saying this, but don't be an ass and let people view your content for free. Forceing someone to register so he can view the board is just mean. You don't get anything out of it (unless you are a spammer), only more users on your board with 0 posts...
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
This is the reason I think Googlebot should report itself as IE6 or whatever is the most popular browser at the time.
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
I'm not so shure I agree. That would effect your statistics and wouldn't provide google with the means to "check your honesty" by switching his bot's header to something else and comparing the output. If you are cloacking your URL's (chances are you are probably doing some other black hat SEO technics as well) you are deceiving google and users - google only indexes publicly available information. If you force someone to register it isn't publicly available anymore.
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
I'm not so shure I agree. That would effect your statistics and wouldn't provide google with the means to "check your honesty" by switching his bot's header to something else and comparing the output.
It would affect the statistics, yes, but if Googlebot appeared as IE6, how would you cloak? 
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
falconflyz wrote:
Simply I think the slightest of courtesy is to register and be identified when going on a forum.
I would have said quite the opposite. I won't register on a forum which doesn't allow me to view messages because I have no way of ascertaining if there is anything there that is of use. I just assume they are trying to cover up the fact there isn't much going on.
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
google has a little link that says "Cached" ... clicking on that will let users see what's written without registering 
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
Rickard wrote:
gog wrote:I'm not so shure I agree. That would effect your statistics and wouldn't provide google with the means to "check your honesty" by switching his bot's header to something else and comparing the output.
It would affect the statistics, yes, but if Googlebot appeared as IE6, how would you cloak?
Everything has it's pros & cons, like everything else in life
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
Rickard wrote:gog wrote:I'm not so shure I agree. That would effect your statistics and wouldn't provide google with the means to "check your honesty" by switching his bot's header to something else and comparing the output.
It would affect the statistics, yes, but if Googlebot appeared as IE6, how would you cloak?
Everything has it's pros & cons, like everything else in life
Personally I'd rather have statistics affected than search results.
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Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
Paul wrote:
falconflyz wrote:Simply I think the slightest of courtesy is to register and be identified when going on a forum.
I would have said quite the opposite. I won't register on a forum which doesn't allow me to view messages because I have no way of ascertaining if there is anything there that is of use. I just assume they are trying to cover up the fact there isn't much going on.
It is a question of point of view. For me a forum is first of all a community and the slightest of things is to register and to become identified to read the messages of the members. Besides nothing forbids a guest to register under a fake identity.
The fact that messages are on Google either the mask of Google proves that they are not secret and allows all to read them and to register if they like to know about it more or to participate in debates.
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
@pogenwurst, what if google consumes to much bandwith of your site and you want to block it? This is just one of the examples...
http://www.info-mob.com/forum/ - Croatian forum only, don't bother if you don't speak Croatian :)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
@pogenwurst, what if google consumes to much bandwith of your site and you want to block it? This is just one of the examples...
I guess one option would be to ban the IP address, which would be what you would do with any user that is consuming an excessive amount of bandwidth.
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Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
@pogenwurst, what if google consumes to much bandwith of your site and you want to block it? This is just one of the examples...
Sorry I don't speek English very well and I don't understand what you want to tell.
(I don't want block Google and there is no problem with bandwith)
Re: How leave GoogelBot reads forums as a member?
gog wrote:
@pogenwurst, what if google consumes to much bandwith of your site and you want to block it? This is just one of the examples...
As any decent spider, Googlebot follows the rules set in your robots.txt file. Because of this, what user agent it reports as doesn't matter at all, other than for statistics. If you don't want it to touch bandwidth-intensive pages, just add a rule to that file and be done with it