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Don't be stupid: "don't" ban
by
07 Jul 2003
Let's say that there's an unusually high number of guests online at your forums. Some are shown up as Creating New Thread or Moderating Duties. There are some important things to know: 1. Any guests that look to be doing bad stuff like playing in the mod CP are not really. They are seeing a Permission Denied screen, but vB2 isn't smart enough to show that in WOL. 2. Never, ever ban a guest unless you're sure it's malicious! Why? Because web spiders such as Googlebot and Inktomi are also guests. Banning them accidently would be a form of suicide by idiocy because you wouldn't be listed on Google and other search engines. 3. If you have vB3, you can tell if a guest is a spider or not by viewing its username in WOL. This option might need to be turned on in the admin CP. Before asking about a specific hostname or IP address, search Google. I guarantee you that somebody else has encountered that IP address or hostname before, and you can easily tell what it is. |