I want bots not to index my forum's content

[papakota]

Hello!

I plan to keep a closed forum and I want to keep the information confidential (ie., only for forum members). So I don't know about forum's defaults in this regard and where to check them and change (if needed). Please do let me know about it.

[Kindred]

so, turn off guest access -- then no guests and no bots (which are always guests) an even see the forum content

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Features_and_Options

[papakota]

so, turn off guest access -- then no guests and no bots (which are always guests) an even see the forum content

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Features_and_Options

Thanks a lot! Forum's access is turned off for guests. I just didn't know that if one can't see forum's content, it also means that bots can't access and index those pages. In other words, if I understand it correctly, bots are like humans in a way. What we see openly on the Internet, they also "see" and index.

[Jailer]

Thanks a lot! Forum's access is turned off for guests. I just didn't know that if one can't see forum's content, it also means that bots can't access and index those pages. In other words, if I understand it correctly, bots are like humans in a way. What we see openly on the Internet, they also "see" and index.

Correct. No guest access, no bots.