"It actually adds in some code into the HTML header that blocks the search engine spiders that obey those rules. When they rescan those previous pages, they will note thte block code and should remove those pages from teh index."

I selected the "block search engines but allow normal visitors" option a while ago but the stats still show Google keywords. Why is that? Thanks for your help. :)

see this thread:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=8260&page&replies=8

@dr.Mike,

One thing that comes to mind is to offer an option to mark specific posts as visable to search engines.

sounds like a good idea.

Would be moot though as they would still appear on the archive pages though

I don't understand. Why would that be a problem?

Maybe there is another workaround anyway.

I can think of some ways if you had the software and were hosted elsewhere actually. You'd have to do some code hacking though. Nothing comes to mind with being here though.

One thing that comes to mind is to offer an option to mark specific posts as visable to search engines. Would be moot though as they would still appear on the archive pages though.

I would prefer nr. 2 as I feel particularly Google is a bit too effettice and I do not like seeing semiprivate comment discussions showing up on irrelevant search terms in Google searches.

My idea was this strategy: select "block search engines" , and in the future put things of informational value for the blog topic on external, searchable sites, then link to them instead of placing them within the blog account.

However, things of informational value for the blog topic already created and linked to from Google etc, should still be searchable and keep its Google position on certain search terms.

But now I realise that is not an option. Maybe there is another workaround anyway. Otherwise I might find one.

Anne

Now do note that not every search engine obeys that setting though. MSN and A9 come to mind as questionable.

Hope this helps,
-drmike

1) My blog will no longer be searchable in any search engine, or

2) New posts will never appear in search engines, but deep links to posts and pages created before the search engine block will still be searchable?

I would like to discuss hosts. Some people I know have recommended Lunar Pages . Synhosting is much cheaper though (considering I do not need everything included in the Lunar pages offer), and it looks reliable somehow. Also, I am not so trusting and the Lunar Pages offer will bind for 24 months, or be more expensive.

But Synhosting seems a bit mysterious. What box?

Sorry, we should not discuss it, that is what you said. Is there somewhere to go and discuss it?

And, yes you need bandwidth. That's how much traffic that gets passed from your site every month. A typical blog here probably does less than a gig a month though.

If you have downloaded a Google Desktop then be aware that the Google spiders will be crawling your blog regardless of the wordpress privacy setting

When you download Google Desktop you can choose how much you want Google to index, eg. emails (gmail), blogs (Blogger only - I think), documents, external disks, and so on, and if you want your computer to be accessible from other computers (shared indexing). I would not allow the last.

Don't be naive. There is a reason you are getting a free application or doodad and that reason is to spy on you. All information gained about you and your preferences feeds into consumer databases and is sold to companies with products and services they want to sell to you and other people like you.

Not that the consequences bother me in the short term. In fact, I often find the discrete gmail ads relevant, hence useful - and that is prabably because Google has indexed all of my X GB of private emails, search history, offline and online documents. Irrelevant ads are annoying, relevant ads are helpful.

However, that said, it is scary to philosophise about it. Billions of people are having their habits and personal interests mapped by relentless web spiders. I do not know if this really happens, though (Google also has some privacy terms)... but it is possible, and will eventually make Google the most powerful firm on Earth, business wise. Who knows how that fairy tail will end.

Why is Synhosting good? And what is the difference between shared hosting and normal hosting?

I consider Lunar Pages, AN, Bluehost, or UnoEuro - or Synhosting, if it is better.

Not primarily for bloghosting - I will not move my current blog as it is too much fuss for such a little thing. I want a domain for self-education, playing with webpage design, and PhP and MySQL, and perhaps Flash.

Lunar Pages looks like the most competitive offer to me, comparing the essential features such as Php, MySQL, disk space, bandwith/Month (??? is that essential?), support, add on domains, and so on. The price is the same for all the hosts except UnoEuro which is much cheaper but not also offering much, and Synhosting which' shared hosting plan, small, seems to be a bit cheaper.

I saw AN and Bluehost on the WordPress host recommendations page.

Any further recommendations with good explanations will be appreciated a lot!

PS. Email addresses is an irrelevant feature

Turns out he had made a post, it sent out the pings and Google picked up on them.

They spider fairly quickly. Getting the pages spidered into the database anytime soon is the issue.

They also crawl very fast. I finally had an idea of how to finally get my ProBoards site listed on Google when for months I had failed to. So I posted the link on my blogroll here and the next day, my ProBoards site was finally on Google. So anything you post that wasn't marked private at first, gets crawled very quickly by the spiders.

So if you do not mark it as Private before clicking Publish then all the above happens.
It's how it is and for the majority of bloggers it is expected behaviour.

If you later mark it as Private you cannot stop the other services as your post in now inside their system. (which is very useful if you ever delete a post by mistake as they may have a copy).

I compare the whole thing to sending out a television broadcast. You can never reach into people's TIVOs and VCRs and make sure they delete it, even if you decide to pull the show from the repeat schedule in the future.

Most Internet users just don't know that something marked "private" could be available for public consumption. That's why I didn't want this debate just to be about me and my mistakes.

It isn't unreasonable for an idiot like me, or an inexperienced user, to mark a previously public post private and expect that it will now be private. It used to be public, now it isn't, see?

I don't have anything useful to say about this anymore, other than it will crop up again with other people and many thanks to all of you for helping me out here. I feel like sitting here with a double duvet over my head for the next six weeks.

Isn't that why?

I didn't miss Mark's point at all. It simply doesn't apply to me. I do not use any desktop doodads, Google anythings or anything other dodgy add-on which could have caused or contributed to this. I'm also extremely cautious about what I download onto my computer. I also stated that I think I tagged some of the posts but not sure if all of them. I'm almost certain I didn't tag them all, and I usually forget to tag posts as a rule and have to go back and do it later, if at all.

What I did was write posts, assign tags to some, and post them. I then, after some time, decided to make them private for a while. I didn't write private posts, store them on a web site and then assign them tags. That would be plain daft.

I have learned my lesson now and only post what I want to be read.

Don't forget, as well, that if you leave a comment on someone else's blog, even if you're not signed in and even if you leave a fake email, they have your IP. They can find you.

The internet is the single most powerful communication tool ever invented. If you don't want to communicate widely, I would suggest not putting your stuff there. You can always keep a journal on your computer in Word or some other desktop software.