Privacy – Block search engines, allow normal visitors?
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I have three blogs, the one that I am choosing the privacy settings for is currently set to private.
Please could someone tell me if selecting “Block search engines but allow normal visitors” will allow my blog to be located using tags?, will it appear within the WordPress site?
I am slightly confused about these settings, I just want to block Blog Scrapers and Search Engines, but allow friends and the WordPress community access. Thanks in advance.
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I think you’ll still have all of the wp.com tag functionality by blocking search engines and any one will be able to see the blog.
Why do you want to block Google, etc? I get quite a few hits from Google/Yahoo/MSN searches. Blocking search engines won’t block blog scrapers. They can pull it from your RSS feed. Only way to prevent scraping is to make the blog completely private and give passwords to those who you want to see it.
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Thanks for the fast reply katm, my thinking behind blocking search engines was that it may reduce the amount of people that find the blog, and therefore reduce the chance of blog scraping. I am not concerned about the amount of hits I get for the blog in question as it is a personal journal. I think that I may choose to stick with the current privacy settings and give access to only those I can trust.
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The best way to discourage blog scrapers on a blog that is not set to private is to set the feed to “summary” rather than “full” and to reduce the number of posts made available through the feed.
-> Options -> Reading
Syndication Feeds
Show the most recent:___posts
For each article, show:
Full text __
Summary ___
Note: If you use the <!–more–> feature, it will cut off posts in RSS feeds.Private blogs do not have rss feeds and where privacy is at issue use of categories is not recommended.
I recommend reading these reference threads before proceeding https://en.forums.wordpress.com/search.php?q=private+posts+on+google
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After reading your links I have come to the conclusion that I would rather be part of the true WordPress community than be totally private and cut off. So I have chosen the “Block search engines but allow normal visitors” option, I have also opened up comments on my posts (scary), and made it my primary blog. I am more concerned about ID theft than anything else, as I was a victim of it in the past, not as a result of my incompetence, but rather as a result of an incompetent internet retailer who did not secure my personal data! I have been very cautious ever since. Thanks again for the advice and links.
After reading some of your blog, which I found very moving, I have realized that it is possible to be open about your feelings without compromising your personal data. So, I am going to try and do the same myself, which feels a little strange and quite scary. Thanks again for your advice.
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Thank you zhijian.
If you noticed, I never use my last name. I never say the city I’m from. I never name the other people in my life.
I don’t want my family to find the blog. They’re not savvy enough to in the first place, but without details, it’s hard to find it.
Blog smart.
Good luck with your blog.
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(waving to katm} I also have one more thing to add – it’s wise not to post a photograph of yourself on your blog.
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(waves back to TT)
Yeah. That too.
I don’t put my picture up mostly because I don’t want to scare off my readers :)
I’ll add one more thing. If you host your images somewhere else (like I use photobucket) don’t use an account that uses your typical screen name because the URL has your screen name in it.
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Thanks for the additional advice, I have re-written my About page and have removed my previous posts, so now I can start from scratch – keeping in mind the things you have said, as I write.
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