Bots to Members

[SillyBoy]

I used to use a hack called 'Memberbot' to allow search engines to spider parts of my site that guests could not access. This hack seems not to work these days on vB3.6.

The author of the hack (on vB.org) was 'trilljester' who seems to have disappeared into the ether.

Does anyone know where I can get a similar working hack or, alternatively, where we can contact 'trilljester'?

Regards

SillyBoy

[Big Dan]

I've never heard of the hack, but when I first started out with my forum, I asked about something similar so the adsense bot could target ads in closed-to-guest forums. Joey (vB-FAQ owner) damn near slapped me upside the head.

What you're looking to do is called cloaking which can get you banned in the search engines very fast. I'm glad he told me because I would have never known.

[SillyBoy]

Joey (vB-FAQ owner) damn near slapped me upside the head.

Oh dear, Deejay Dan. Sounds nasty! I don't think our Joey would get quite that physical though, would he?

What you're looking to do is called cloaking which can get you banned in the search engines very fast.

I appreciate your giving me this advice, of course, but I would hardly call what I am seeking to do 'cloaking'. To explain, I don't carry any adsense (or any other) advertising on my site. It's a public information site in a specific field, namely higher education.

I simply want to allow search engine access to some areas I don't want the, shall we say 'wider public', to freely browse on my site. Some things have to be reserved for members, otherwise why become a member at all. Allowing access to content through a search engine (rather than directly on site) cannot possibly be described as 'cloaking' anything - can it?

SillyBoy

[Peggy]

If you ever want Adsense in the future - they'll consider it cloaking. Their idea of certain things is different from ours

[Big Dan]

SillyBoy, I agree with you. I think webmaster's should be able to run their sites as they see fit, and not worry about what Google or Yahoo thinks. Personally, I wouldn't risk my site be banned by SE's to get some additional pages indexed.

That being said: I've heard of the hack, it exists, I'm just not sure where.

[SillyBoy]

If you ever want Adsense in the future - they'll consider it cloaking. Their idea of certain things is different from ours

Yup, totally agree with you Peggy - and that is just one of the many reasons I will never be using Adsense or any other advertising revenue earner on what is, after all, MY board. Making money just ain't one of those things that matter so much to me. More important things in life, in my humble opinion.

SillyBoy, I agree with you. I think webmaster's should be able to run their sites as they see fit, and not worry about what Google or Yahoo thinks. Personally, I wouldn't risk my site be banned by SE's to get some additional pages indexed.

That being said: I've heard of the hack, it exists, I'm just not sure where.

OK, thanks Deejay Dan. Thanks also for your well intended advice. I am grateful for your replies - and for Peggy's too of course.

All the best

SillyBoy