XF 1.1 Member Names in Google Search

[tekgirl]

Ok, I thought I had done everything to protect my members and now I find out my members names are coming up in google searches...how can I stop this?

Thanks

 

[Jake Bunce]

Is your forum open to the public? Any publicly viewable page will end up on Google unless you use a robots.txt file to ask them not to index you.

 

[tekgirl]

Hi Jake,

yes it is, but I have it coded so that the member list is not viewable by the public and did not realize it would still be able to be indexed. What would I use in robots.txt to prevent this? Thank you!

 

[Jake Bunce]

yes it is, but I have it coded so that the member list is not viewable by the public and did not realize it would still be able to be indexed.

It shouldn't be able to be indexed if it's not viewable to guests.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/make-the-member-list-inaccessible-to-guests.337/

Member names appear in many other places, not just the member list. Exactly what page is showing up on Google?

 

[tekgirl]

The person's name and the profile page...I wonder if the code was wiped out when I upgraded...

 

[tekgirl]

I checked the code in the member's list template and it is as it was posted above.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Are profile pages viewable by guests? That is controlled by the View user profiles permission in your user groups.

 

[tekgirl]

I have the profiles set to NOT be able to view user profiles but I logged out and as a guest I can.

 

[tekgirl]

If I set to Never, then if logged out, I cannot view user profile. But I shouldn't have to do that...

 

[Jake Bunce]

There are user prefs:

http://xenforo.com/community/account/privacy

But those have to be set for each individual user. Just set the group permission instead.

 

[tekgirl]

I did have it set in the user group permissions to No for unregistered and unconfirmed..now I have it set to Never. I thought if set to No, it should work.

Also, if I do not want members indexed by robots.text...should I add this code:

Disallow: /members/

 

[tekgirl]

Also, I checked one of the users whose entire name shows up on Google with a link to their profile page and everything is for Members Only, which is how I originally set up the forum.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Also, if I do not want members indexed by robots.text...should I add this code:

Disallow: /members/

Yes. For reference:

http://xenforo.com/robots.txt

 

[tekgirl]

Thanks...so...is there a bug then with the permissions for profiles? Should I have had to use the Never permission?

 

[Jake Bunce]

"Not Set" should be enough for guests. I can't confirm any bug here. It works fine in my testing.

 

[tekgirl]

I originally had the following without the /community/, which is probably part of the issue...I found the list here on the site somewhere...do I not need all of this disallowed?

Disallow: /community/attachments/
Disallow: /community/misc/
Disallow: /community/search/
Disallow: /community/members/
Disallow: /community/register/
Disallow: /community/login/
Disallow: /community/online/
Disallow: /community/lost-password/
Disallow: /community/recent-activity/
Disallow: /community/account/
Disallow: /community/admin.php
Disallow: /community/conversations/
Disallow: /community/find-new/
Disallow: /community/forums/
Disallow: /community/goto/
Disallow: /community/media/keyword/
Disallow: /community/media/user/
Disallow: /community/media/service/
Disallow: /community/media/submit/
Disallow: /community/misc/style?*
Disallow: /community/misc/quick-navigation-menu?*
Disallow: /community/online/
Disallow: /community/pages/conduct/
Disallow: /community/pages/privacy/
Disallow: /community/posts/

 

[Jake Bunce]

Is your forum installed in /community? That needs to match the name of your forum root.

 

[tekgirl]

Ah, ok...that is why I didn't have /community/...no my forum is installed in root...

 

[tekgirl]

Should I add Disallow: /members/

 

[tekgirl]

"Not Set" should be enough for guests. I can't confirm any bug here. It works fine in my testing.

I am going to leave it to never...