Locked PhPbb Forums

Are messages in locked phpbb forums spidered by bots?

[kwasher]

Are messages in locked phpbb forums spidered by bots? Do they provide company confidentialilty in that are they safe from all prying 'eyes'?

[rogerd]

If by "locked" you mean forums that can be viewed only by members or a specific class of members, bots should not be able to view them unless you create a hack to permit them. I'm not familiar with the phpBB code, but bots tend to fail at anything that requires authentication.

[kwasher]

THANKS Rogerd! A good example would be the private forums here at ww. I imagine they would not be spidered or locking them would be a useless endevour. I wanted to make sure though, in case you are supposed to password protect the web page as well as lock the forum.

[rogerd]

I've seen sites that use the reverse approach - they let spiders into locked content so that searchers find the pages, are confronted with a registration or fee requirement, and must register or pay to proceed. Annoying to the searcher, but good marketing I suppose.