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Hi JoAnn
I was just curious about the guests that visit this site. Are they able to read what ever is posted here, and how do you screen them so we know we are safe? I noticed that often there are more guests then members, I hope they join and get the support they need. I tend to not keep my posts plain vanilla, just wondering if I should.
I just hope everyones heart is in the same supportive place.Hi Heidi,
I researched that out thoroughly when I first started doing this site, as I was also curious as to who these ‘guests’ were.
Apparently these are the automatic ‘robots’ that google, yahoo and other search engines send out to verify and rank the sites. These are not real people and they cannot get into the website, they are simply reading the hidden code to look for errors or ‘not found’ pages or all that other stuff that google and others look for.
So, don’t worry, no one, and I mean no one, can get in to see the member’s only portion of this site unless they are paid members.
Oh, and Heidi, I also checked further by asking the software company that sells the membership software that I use.
The ‘guests’ are also people who are on the home page, but not signed in. So, these could be people who are browsing and just reading that page or the subscription page.
That would also include automated spammers (run by computer programs), who cannot get in, but try to sign up. They are kicked off when they don’t pay. Unfortunately their names come through and show up as members–but they cannot sign in even if they are real people unless they have paid and passed through the process.
If you look through the membership list you may see some strange names in there. I have to clear them out every week or so.
JoAnn, I was wondering about this because a few months ago my h asked me about a post I’d made here. He wasn’t able to read the post, just the title of the forum it was in, and I asked him how he was even able to see that much. He said that doing a google search allowed him to see the titles page.
So just now I tried it, and I wasn’t able to see anything except the home page, but I wanted to let you know that now the title ‘For Claire’ shows up in the home page, and if you click on it.. even without being signed into the site.. your message about donating to Claire shows up, so anyone can read it. Thought you’d want to know. xoxo
Opps, in my haste to put up the page I forgot that each new page (not posts or comments–they are already on a protected page) must be assigned to a level which excludes the public.
I have done that.
Thanks so much for watching my back when I forget.
Please check again, and remember to refresh that page to see the new restrictions. Even if you forget to refresh, when you click on the ‘For Claire’ tab you would be denied access to reading it.
Love to all ~ JoAnn
No, new titles, topics, comments, etc do not show up in google searches. They are all indexed as a ‘no follow no index’ page and also included in my robots.txt that google reads every time it accesses my website, which they do dozens of times a day. This robots.txt has my rules for google and prevents them from putting any of the pages or titles listed in their index.
This prevents google from even seeing the page.
There was an issue a few months ago where some of the titles were showing up in the google search, but you could not access the topic.
Google wants to index everything for it’s search engine, (damn control freaks) so I have to do all sorts of things to deny google access.
I was overwrought when this happened and got the programmers working on it immediately. That is when I made every page a ‘no index no follow’ with the search engines and wrote the robots.txt to include all the forum pages.
As far as I can see, that has stopped anything from coming up.
JoAnn
You think of everything JoAnn. I wondered the same thing about posts showing up on google searches. A couple of months ago, I typed in my h’s username on RN, and it popped up the links and took me directly to his posts.
Rn is open to the public to read, but I’ll bet if he knew anyone could go directly from Google and read his posts he would have spased out. I never told him. Was hoping someone he knew would do it. Ha!Thanks Sharron, but I am really not that smart. It’s been a lot of trial and error along with bazillions of questions to the software developers and hours and hours of testing every week.
The Sister’s privacy is number one with me, but giants like google have billions to spend on their goals.
Now, google could care less what was said in our forums here, they only want to add to the probably trillions of indexed pages so that their search engines, which we all enjoy every time we type in a search word or phrase, have the widest variety of topics and key words to offer. That’s what makes them number one.
So, they are not purposely trying to invade our privacy, they are only trying to increase the price of their stock. It’s up to me to find ways to keep them out of our business.
It’s a constantly changing cat and mouse game.
But I am really surprised that a large site like Recovery Nation would not have better safeguards. But, you have to remember, they want traffic, so they leave their pages open.
I know that I am cutting my own throat as far as getting new traffic to my web site (which equals new members) by blocking all of the page titles and topic titles from google.
Each and every one of those page links COULD bring me new members by popping up in the google searches. And, because of that I lose any high rankings on google (the page I show up on with searches).
I choose privacy over traffic. That’s why I promote the married site so much. It is completely open and consistently ranks on the first or second page in most searches for anything related to partners of Sex Addicts. I have a promo on the first page and hope they will give us a try.
I have also started a new site, http://sisterhoodofsupport.org with completely open pages and lots of information that links to the subscription and sign in pages here. Hopefully that will generate some new traffic, but I just haven’t had time to work on it very much.
So, in a nutshell, that’s a mini lesson in web SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
I need a life. ~ JoAnn
For what it’s worth, I have felt nothing but safe on this site since the very beginning. I have posted my picture, cell phone number, and many personal details. I would be happy to post my measurements if anyone is interested, wink….wink!!
Now that’s confidence in the system!!!!
Thanks for the explanation JoAnn. I have always felt safe on this site becuase I know how meticulous and thorough you are and that you have our backs. I also change my pw frequently-just in case psycho dude tries to figure it out.
I thank you for all you do for each and everyone of us.
You are one in a million!!!!
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