THE GREAT PROSCIUTTO!
Now there was a
ham.
*rimshot*
Posted on: December 18, 2013, 08:04:23 AM
Okay, guys, just a heads-up.
I went and looked for a forum mod to help detect and restrict spiders. The server timeouts and such are due to an influx of spiders, which plague many simplemachines forums.
I passed the mod to Vixy, along with the discussion topic regarding the mod itself. I'm not sure when it will be installed, but if you guys notice anything weird after the installation, please let us know. Hell, make a topic in the General section.
What the mod will do, as I said, is allow the forum to detect and possibly restrict spiders. Currently, the forum only detects certain bots, so the rest are registered as Guests, and we have issues. If the spiders are detected, then we'll have the option of restricting them, most likely through a disallow list (I haven't seen the forum's innards, so this is guesswork based on the limited vBulletin innards I've seen before).
What this means is that the forum itself may not show up in search engines as often. But, honestly, to keep bots away, that's a small price to pay. Plus, major spiders, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, will still stop by. They're not restricted at the moment.