XF 1.5 Help page available at hidden forum

[Rifuku]

Hello.

My forum works fine and after I added the "robots.txt" to the main folder all search engines got locked out and that works fine too. Unfortunately, and I do not understand why, I can find the "help" page when I use a search engine. How can I prevent that to hide my forum completely?

Regards

Olli

 

[Mike]

The help pages are always publicly visible. These generally include information that is important to cover before a user registers and thus needs to be publicly visible.

 

[Freelancer]

BTDT.

Two things to do:

1. Robots text file must include this:

user-agent: *
Allow: /$
Disallow: /

It allows robots to search the INDEX but not any other page (including "/help")

2. HIDE SPECIFIC help page content with the following conditionals in the template "help_index":

<xen:if is="{$visitor.user_id}"></xen:if>

For example I did hide the SMILIES from unregistered visitors:

<xen:if is="{$visitor.user_id}">
            <dt><a href="{xen:link help/smilies}">{xen:phrase smilies}</a></dt>
            <dd>{xen:phrase this_shows_full_list_of_smilies_you_can_insert_when_posting_message}</dd>
        <xen:else />
            <dt><a href="{xen:link help/smilies}">{xen:phrase smilies}</a></dt>
            <dd>{xen:phrase log_in_or_sign_up_to_view_content}</dd>
        </xen:if>

Meaning that unregistered visitors only see "you must log in to view this content" instead of the list of smilies.

The reason you do NOT want to hide the entire "help" link is because you are obliged to have the cookie explanation or the terms of use clearly visible to obey EU laws for example.

 

[Rifuku]

Hello.

Thank you, I will add the line s to the page. Wasn't aware of the EU law at this point. But my forum has only 4 members and is not for others to visit. Not entirely sure, if that is correct to EU law, but when it is entirely hidden: who cares

Meaning that unregistered visitors only see "you must log in to view this content" instead of the list of smilies.

That is exactly I was looking for. Thank you for the help

Olli