Wasn't the old PnP invisible to google? Isn't there a way to make off-route invisible to search engines, or maybe visibility is desired?

Matt?

Recently, we made O-R invisible to site visitors unless they were logged in, though there have always been exceptions (I used to be able to see PnP at work but not at home when not logged in).

But as far as Google results go, I don't know.

Example?

Probably you can't get to them for details unless you are logged in, but try:
"train wreck" summitpost
as search terms on google.

I was asked a question about something that I thought was only in a deleted thread. So I googled that topic, and it came up with the partial quote. I didn't realize the outre portions of the thread had been moved to off-route. (The question was about something non-controversial, but the answer was still in that thread).

Edit: actually, I can still read the posts from google, even when signed out. Off-rote does not appear in the forum list, but google will still take me there.

Okay, I see now.

However, it seems you have to be looking pretty hard and pretty specifically for that. Or in other words, only an SP member would find an OR topic at the top of a results list in all but a very few cases.

Did a more general search put OR at or near the top?

Anyway, a fix, if one is needed, is above my pay grade. I'm busy enough wrecking the site by deleting crap pages.

And, hey, what's ggogle?

Bbbbob, iiit's llllike google with the DTs.

Searching google for ["Off-Route" summitpost] will allow you to see the posts, whether you are logged in or not. There are a lot other terms (use your imagination) one can substitute for "off-route."

Certainly there are much worse topics on the web; but some contributors to "off-route" may be under the illusion that it is less visible (to search engines) than other forums.

I did a search on Verizon (don't know what the search engine is) of my name and it brought up a few "off-route" posts that were easily visible without signing in - maybe I should change my screen name.

These methods are not universal, but they may keep Off-route out of the search engines. The easiest requires that all the posts are in a distinct directory.

http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/noindex.html

twoshuzz wrote:Why is it worrisome that OR shows up in Google or any other search engine ?

It isn't to me, since I generally don't use OR. I came across this fact quite by accident, while searching for something else; I entered what I thought were mild keywords, and got a page full of very nasty stuff. The thread had been moved from the front page to off-route, because there were personal attacks and some very salty language and libelous comments.

Presumably, folks didn't want that thread on the front page, as representative of SP. Well, it's not on the front page, but it sure isn't hidden. Most people find SP by googling for information on the mountains of interest. In this case, that simple act gave me this "non-representative" exchange at the top of the google search on those mountains.

LOL. I think very few on this site recognize what the term libelous actually means.

I'm mainly concerned about the claims that MLC SC takes pictures of women peeing. We have to keep that sotto voce.

That was a classic!

For any other web development geeks who might be interested, it looks like google and other such web crawlers are indexing Off Route through topics which have been moved to OR. For example, I hadn't initially realized that this thread was moved to OR but after clicking on it suddenly found myself in the OR forum.

If you are not logged in you can still get into OR via this thread and presumably others like it. I suspect that the desired result is to present a login screen if a non-member clicks on the thread ?

rhyang wrote:For any other web development geeks who might be interested, it looks like google and other such web crawlers are indexing Off Route through topics which have been moved to OR. For example, I hadn't initially realized that this thread was moved to OR but after clicking on it suddenly found myself in the OR forum.

If you are not logged in you can still get into OR via this thread and presumably others like it. I suspect that the desired result is to present a login screen if a non-member clicks on the thread ?

I think it takes a day or so for google to index the messages. I made a post after the thread went off-route (I found it through google!), with the phrase Mea Culpa, and that post shows up in google today.

Is there anything that designates that thread -- as shown in the html link above -- as off-route, other than an internal indexing for this specific BBS? Since it is an html page, one could put in a header that designates it should be invisible to search engines. But I doubt that html editing feature is easy within the BBS software. And every 15 posts in a thread has a separate html page.

I bet it's just some obscure phbb permissions setting that would need to be changed.. the kind of stuff Uber Elf Gangolf could figure out in his sleep

Oops, sorry, looks like it's my thread that got moved like that...

But hang on, all that has to happen is for somebody with a fixed web page to link to an Off-Route forum page, and then Google has a way back in to index.

So to me, if you are depending on those pages not being indexed, you'd better find a new pony.