Will Search Engines be able to see a particular category?

[kathiemt]

I am using smf 2.0.2. A brand new forum. I've got 3 different categories set up with several boards in two of them. One of the categories I've created a special member group to access that category and boards - no-one else. Guests can't see the category, and boards when visiting the forum, nor can regular members .

Will search engines still be able to see this board and categories or will it be invisible to them also?  Because the members may, at times, be discussing a client by name, I don't want them having problems with the conversation being picked up by search engines.

[ApplianceJunk]

Will search engines still be able to see this board and categories or will it be invisible to them also?

It will be invisible to the search engines.

The search engines will only be able to see what guest can see.

[kathiemt]

That's what I was hoping. Thank you. That's good news.

[MrPhil]

Even if a "guest" can't see this category, be careful that you are in compliance with all applicable laws and industry regulations regarding privacy, confidentiality, and data security. For example, if this is medical information about specific people, in the US it will come under HIPAA regulations regarding encryption, access, database security, use of SSL, etc. Financial information is also heavily regulated. Simply controlling access under a group may not be considered adequate, if there's ever a breach.

[kathiemt]

Thanks for the warning. No, our industry is the Virtual Assistant industry. No medical or legal information discussed. It's more about when a client is proving difficult, or a non-payer, or something along those lines. We like to give warnings to the rest of the group in case the client is working their way through them, getting free work done. That type of thing.