disaster-master — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:42:39 +0000

I think I will just do as Suzanne suggested and tell the clients that I do test their sites. Taff also made a good point. Guess that the shock of finding that thread just freaked me a bit.

Thanks for checking into this Chad, Mark and Mairving.

Chad Simper — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:26:02 +0000

There is no way for me to prevent this and I doubt a hack could prevent it. Search engines will index whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. They ignore rules listed int he robots.txt file half the time. I completely understand your frustration and I wish there were something that I could do but...

mairving — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 13:08:31 +0000

It is rare for Google to index these pages. If I do a search for mairving, then I come up with this site, but apparently it is only picking up the moderated by mairving and not diving into the threads. This appears on all sites that are V-bulletin that I post on.

So I think if you can keep the name of the site out of the title, then it won't be indexed by a search engine. For instance, a search on Google for Disaster-Master yielded a thread that was last post by Disaster-Master, which wasn't there when you clicked on it.

Wil — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 09:20:52 +0000

Use ROBOTS.TXT files or pass META no-cache headers with that paticular forum?

Mark Hensler — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 07:28:21 +0000

I made a post at vBulletin.org requesting a hack...
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35032

Let's see if anyone bites.

taff — Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:53:14 +0000

Alternatively, do all your development and testing on your own server and just move the finished product. I learned that one from getting critiques at "Web Pages That Suck" - there's something you don't want popping up in the log files

The Webmistress — Tue, 12 Feb 2002 10:55:19 +0000

I have had this happen before from another forum. There isn't anything you can do to stop it but as Suzzane says tell the client that you asked for testing & advise on the site and they should accept it.

Suzanne — Tue, 12 Feb 2002 08:13:58 +0000

Oh dear. I hear your pain, but here's what I do -- I tell the customers upfront that if I run into a programming problem, and for beta testing since I can't have every possible configuration, I "use the power of the Internet" and have beta testers, helping hands, et cetera look at the site.

Most clients are happy to hear that.

And for what it's worth, I donate hours a week to moderating and answering questions on a number of bulletin boards to help out where I am strong.

I usually use private beta testers, but the end result is the same. If nothing else, you can prove to the customer that you were doing everything in your power to make sure his/her site was as robust as possible.

Suzanne