Can search engines read private forums?

[AM]

I have a site that is being used to discuss laws and actual lawsuits. The forums are open to the public, but I would like to create private forums so legal advisors can post their strategies without the public seeing that portion of the law discussion site.

The problem is, if the strategy discussion is picked up by search engines, they will make snapshots and cached history of what was found in the private forums.

How secure is IntegraMod's private forum feature?

[Drop-Forged]

Im not an expert on this matter, but from what I can tell, I dont think bots index private forums.

I use to be worried about the same thing, until I used a .script designed to help bots index my site.

The .script only sees public forums.

It sees categories, links them forums, and then topics.

With Private forums, it just sees categories.


Here is a link to the .script on my site, so you understand what I am talking about.


http://www.christiansoldiersgaming.org/archive/


I think that the only way bots will see your private forums, is if you install a mod that registers bots as members, and then give them permission to those private forums.


But again this is just my understanding of how it works.

[Teelk]

Bots are guests or anonymous users and therefore are bound by the board permissions. So, if guests can't see it, neither will bots.

[IntegraMOD]

But if they are made news posts and in a private forum then YES Bots, guests and even anon users will be able to see the post, as news post do not follow forum permissions.

i did ask about this b4 the release of 1.41 and it was suggested that this will be looked into after the release, to make all posts even news and announcements posts follow board and forum permissions.

[AM]

Thank you everyone for your response.

gffb, I didn't know private posts could be seen if they were marked as news or announcements. Good thing I found that out before I flagged a private post as either of those.

I thought if it's private and in a forum, only those with access would see the announcement and news based on their access rights.

[IntegraMOD]

Thats the way I thought it should work also

[DjPorkchop]

Very good question.... and very good answers. My question is this........... I fyou make a forum private, then WHY would you make it news? Seems that would defeat the purpose of it being private.

[IntegraMOD]

Very good question.... and very good answers. My question is this........... I fyou make a forum private, then WHY would you make it news? Seems that would defeat the purpose of it being private.

This is not really the case, I make a forum private because I only want a certain group of people to have access to certain forums, so if I want a news post that only certain groups should be able to see I make it in that forum. I think this makes the portal and news more personal, thats way I would call a private forum a group forum really and have news and announcment posts follow forum permissions.

This is the way I would like it, so any help to change permission so all the posts on the portal page follow permissions would be appreciated

[AM]

Ditto what gffb said.

I have a law discussion site that only certain members can see the strategy forum. Just because these members are in a private forum, doesn't mean they don't check the portal page for news and announcements.

If I post a news item from the strategy forum, when the advisors log in and look at the portal page, they should be able to see guest news, registered member's news and strategy news.

Whereas, if I post a news item from the public forum, the guests only see public news.

Same with the registered users, who will be able to see guest news, registered user news, but not strategy news.

That's why I want to have access rights to news and announcements. Either that, or each group should be able to have their own portal start page that only shows items to those with access rights to view the portal page.

But even if they did it that way, it would be annoying to have to go to the default portal page, and to your private portal page. Better to just have one page.

[IntegraMOD]

Can a dev or admin look in to this and see if we can change the news and announcement permission please <img>

[Teelk]

I'll add this to the todo list and get back to you.

[IntegraMOD]

Thank you Teelk