User Profiles, Albums, Vistor Conversations

[Taylor514ce]

Some forums allow spiders/indexes into the User Profiles, other sites don't. What about MobileRead? I would personally prefer it if these parts of the site were blocked from spiders and search bots.

[badgoodDeb]

Yeah. I was earlier searching for .... um, bulla? I forget the word ... but we had discussed it in reference to montsnmags's dog. Anyway, the 4th item on google's list was the very discussion I had come from.

[zelda_pinwheel]

why Taylor, whatever could you possibly have to hide ?

[Taylor514ce]

Don't let's start that argument. A desire for relative privacy doesn't not imply guilt. I simply don't want the universe "googling" what I consider semi-private conversations, or "members-only" information, if you will.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Don't let's start that argument. A desire for relative privacy doesn't not imply guilt. I simply don't want the universe "googling" what I consider semi-private conversations, or "members-only" information, if you will.

I'm sorry what now? This is a publically accesable forum with no expectation of privacy. The only expectiation is if you don't use your real name. Of course, if your one of those morons that use the same puesdonym on every form then that will tie to together.

Many people forget how "pubilc" the net really is and get themselves into trouble.

BOb

[Taylor514ce]

I haven't taken the position that I have an expectation of privacy. I'm aware of how forums work... I've written vbulletin plug-ins, and plummed the depths of PHP and MySql... I also see that Albums, for example, can be made public or accesible only to "Contacts and Moderators". I'm not sure what a Contact is vs. a "Friend", though. and don't know if the site excludes Visitor Conversations from search bots, or not.

All I'm doing is asking if User Profiles, Visitor Messages, and Albums are blocked from search engines, or not, and if not, if the MR admins would consider doing so, or making it a user option.

I'm not making demands or waving around misunderstood "rights" or "expectations". So while I appreciate the rightness of your post, I contest its relevance to this thread.

I'm asking a question, and making a suggestion/request.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

All I'm doing is asking if User Profiles, Visitor Messages, and Albums are blocked from search engines, or not, and if not, if the MR admins would consider doing so, or making it a user option.

Hey Taylor, your remark is well taken, and I can put your mind at ease... they are all blocked from search engines, and always have been. In order to view a user's profile, his visitor message, or his albums, you need to be registered at MobileRead. Guests (which includes search engines) don't have access to these areas (you can try yourself by logging out your user).

In addition, we disallow well-behaving search engines from even attempting to spider these places through robots.txt.

Cheers!
Alex

[Taylor514ce]

Thanks, exactly what I wanted to know, and the answer I wanted to hear.