Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

[Vasili]

So....here goes:

(Both Primary domain on VH Account and Sub-Domain elsewhere, DNS pointed to VH account properly)

A. If I have a Forum in a sub-folder of a sub-domain so it can remain password-protected (for my employee/Associate use only, as a "semi-live" training/CRM/Sales/work enviornment) does that mean the content posted within it will remain "searchable" and "rankable" by SE's?

B. Although in a sub-folder (which is 'password protected') in a sub-domain, do I need to worry about installing a "bot file" to further protect the Forum which contains addresses and sensitive material, or since it is a protected sub-sub is this enough?

C. If the answer to "A" above is "Yes!" then do I have to be concerned that cached content will deliver unwanted visitors to the front-end of the Forum (in effect bypassing layers of password protected linear linking) if they hyperlink directly from results of a Google search (for example)?? Or, even though my Forum content shows up in searches, will links take them to the Password Logon Page for the sub-folder in which the Forum (and additional web pages) reside???

Although it is not necessary, it would be fine for Forum Content to be picked up by SE's (which would elevate the corporate sites in general), I need to be sure that I can keep unwanted/unauthorized visitors from accessing what is intended to be an online section for employees only.....

ANY help to clarify this would be greatly appreciated so I can move on an install vBulletin in this planned fashion!

[racefan20]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Make sure the permissions on the forum are set to where only registered users can view anything and you're good to go - even if someone comes across the link to the forum or one of the threads, they won't be able to view it. Also make sure that you have registration configured where a new person has to be admin approved.

With this setup, though, the se's won't be able to index your forum.

[Vasili]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Thank you General!

Figures the content would remain invisible being 'protected'. It's not a big deal....

What about the bot file to deny permission to crawl? Should I still install one on the sub-folder to preserve "privacy" of the forum???

[racefan20]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

You can, but you probably won't need to. If the average user can't view the page, neither can the bots.

[navaldesign]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Following Racefan's advise, you don't need to worry about search engines links to your forum. As he said above, even if SE rank and index your forum, the forum content will be invisible to visitors. However, i'm not sure if the SE bots can view or not your content. In they can, i mean if they can bypass the login and index your content, there is a chance that some of this content may appear in the SE cache, so you should better have a robot.txt file on your site, telling bots NOT to follow the links to the forum.

[Vasili]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Ευχαριστώ!

[racefan20]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Following Racefan's advise, you don't need to worry about search engines links to your forum. As he said above, even if SE rank and index your forum, the forum content will be invisible to visitors. However, i'm not sure if the SE bots can view or not your content. In they can, i mean if they can bypass the login and index your content, there is a chance that some of this content may appear in the SE cache, so you should better have a robot.txt file on your site, telling bots NOT to follow the links to the forum.

Bots can't bypass it, I've seen them try on my forum with no luck, but I agree that a robot.txt file will take all the guess work out of it.

[Vasili]

Re: Can Sub-Domain Forum Be Protected AND Rankable?

Agreed.....and still grateful for your personal assistance with my persistent "dilemmas"........