Oh no! We're being crawled..

[unklStewy]

That was something that I didn't realize about phpBB, it displays when different search engine bots are crawling the forums for search indexes.

It displayed BING [BOT] as being logged into the service.

That is a pretty cool feature.

Casey

[Kanchou]

Casey,

phpBB has a lot of cool features, we're really happy with it so far

Also, since the subforums are sectioned off via login, all the search bots can see is an empty forum. None of the topics discussed here would appear on a search.

If we give bots read access to the forums, we'll make sure to announce it so everyone is aware.

- Alejandro

[Big Mac]

Casey,

phpBB has a lot of cool features, we're really happy with it so far

phpBB is pretty cool. I used to be a moderator on a vBulletin forum, but I am now a junior admin on a D&D forum that uses phpBB. But they only just released 3.1 Ascraeus and most people are still on 3.0. This place looks a tiny bit odd to me, so I'm assuming you installed 3.1.

Also, since the subforums are sectioned off via login, all the search bots can see is an empty forum. None of the topics discussed here would appear on a search.

If we give bots read access to the forums, we'll make sure to announce it so everyone is aware.

I presume you will want to allow the bots into the forums (at some point - probably on the day you start selling OWM) so that potential customers asking questions can find threads where users are discussing their issues. Essentially this community will become "user-to-user support".

Having said that, it might be good to have one or more private forums.

[unklStewy]

Heya,

I used to run phpBB back in the day but it wasn't as advanced as it is now and it was also prone to security holes. I was just exaggerating my shock. The bot crawling feature is pretty nifty.

Casey

[Kanchou]

Heya,
I used to run phpBB back in the day but it wasn't as advanced as it is now and it was also prone to security holes. I was just exaggerating my shock. The bot crawling feature is pretty nifty.

I know . I thought it was interesting how fast Google and Bing were trying to search the forums! I pointed out that it was a closed forum because the default user name is the Kickstarter email address.

I presume you will want to allow the bots into the forums (at some point - probably on the day you start selling OWM) so that potential customers asking questions can find threads where users are discussing their issues. Essentially this community will become "user-to-user support".

Indeed. The open forums will eventually be open to bot searches.

- Alejandro