SEO Question

[eMonk]

I'm getting a few search engine results from my keywords in the title of my forum. If I set the forums to private (so you must login to see the content), will I be penalized in anyway and loose my rankings? These search results are from the title tag.. not the forum content.

[cooldude7]

IMHO backlinks and anchor text is what counts.,and matters.,

good luck.

[VladS]

You'll lose that traffic anyway since the page will be password protected, so why bother?

[V_RocKs]

depends.. if you have a very low bounce rate and very high page views and time on site Google will overlook the lockout.

[Agent 488]

probably not.

[woj]

you will likely lose those serps...

[RyuLion]

Those listing will eventually disappear from the index.

[icymelon]

you will get the spider as long as the script doesnt add no-index to the pages. you might want to add or check your site map

[Nicky]

If you have enough in-links to support the serp without the majority of the content your ranking will probably stay safe. We are talking about the forum index site right?

[~Ray]

backlink the index page and protect the /forum.php page.

best of both worlds

~Ray

[st0ned]

What script is running your forum? In the past when I use to mess with vBulletin I was pretty sure there was a setting to make it private but still allow the SE bots to crawl the forum. I never saw any negative results when doing so.

[eMonk]

You'll lose that traffic anyway since the page will be password protected, so why bother?

To get lurkers to register and become members.

If you have enough in-links to support the serp without the majority of the content your ranking will probably stay safe. We are talking about the forum index site right?

Hmm... I don't think I have in links... just a bunch of viewers in various city forums which got me these positions I think.

What script is running your forum? In the past when I use to mess with vBulletin I was pretty sure there was a setting to make it private but still allow the SE bots to crawl the forum. I never saw any negative results when doing so.

vBulletin but I think you need a mod to do that.