Stop Google from indexing users profile

[Estebanium]

Hi guys,

I don't know if there is any option for this but I am looking for a setting that prevents Google from indexing my profile, otherwise it will be displayed if you search on Google for my nickname.. Reddit has this feature for instance.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Oh, this is fascinating. It lists posts and tidbits from every site where I use this name.

But I was very surprised to see that I have a blog here:

Valka D'Ur's blog - CivFanatics
www.civfanatics.com/blog/56602
Fanatical coverage of Sid Meier's Civilization series.

But when I went to see what I'd written in this blog I didn't know I have, I get this:

Access denied
You are not authorized to access this page.

So... Google thinks that not only I have a blog, but that many other people do, as well. However, the blog feature here has been disabled.


Doing an image search turns up some pretty bizarre results. The cat birthday lolpics are from here (thanks, guys! ), but the rest of the images have absolutely nothing to do with me.

 

[Camikaze]

I don't think the blog feature is disabled, but rather it's hidden for most users. Staff members are able to post blogs, it seems.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't think the blog feature is disabled, but rather it's hidden for most users. Staff members are able to post blogs, it seems.

If it's "hidden" that's basically the same as disabled. I've known about the vBulletin blog feature for a long time (one of those things mentioned in the publicly-accessible manual), and suggested that it be enabled for the benefit of the members who have very specific topics they want to post on that may not necessarily be a good thread topic. Is there any reason other than moderating the blogs for inappropriate content to explain why this feature hasn't been enabled for members?

The photo album is another vBulletin feature that appears to not be available to us here. That's a shame; this feature is available at TrekBBS, and I've got a couple of albums there of Star Trek and space-themed lolpics.

 

[Quintillus]

Huh, I didn't know there was a blog feature on our version of vBulletin. I knew Apolyton had them, but they're on a newer version of vBulletin so I figured it was something that was in their version, but not ours.

It does seem that profiles are indeed visible to non-signed-in viewers, such as Google. Wouldn't have really expected that.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Handy for stalking purposes - and I've had a stalker prove it.

 

[Petek]

I disabled profile access for unregistered and not-logged in users. This should prevent Google and other search engines from indexing them. It might take some time for the results to disappear from searches, however. Thanks to all who commented in this thread.

 

[Takhisis]

People could just copy the URL and find archived or caché versions of these pages.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

People could just copy the URL and find archived or caché versions of these pages.

They could, but who other than really super-dedicated stalkers and Google would care enough to bother?

 

[Synobun]

They could, but who other than really super-dedicated stalkers and Google would care enough to bother?

I know there are websites that do this with YouTube videos. I'm fairly certain that there isn't anything that does this with forum content, at least not for video game websites. Without indexing, it should be alright.

 

[Maniacal]

If someone wants to stalk you they'll find your username anyway, Google indexes the forum posts...

Also the first result for Estebanium for me is a reddit account that has only a few posts.