There was some recent concern brought to my attention that the Google protection of the workshop threads was no longer working. I was alarmed and looked into it, and after exhaustive tests, I can assure one and all that the protection is working as well as it always did, and nothing has changed.
However, it seems that I need to again remind/clarify everyone about which threads are protected and how.
First, all the workshop forums are automatically protected (Metrical, TDE, Non-Met, Translation, and Fiction). When posting there, there is no need to enter any additional protection code to prevent Google from indexing your poem or fiction thread. However, if you're posting in any of the non-workshop forums that are not protected, there is still a way to protect what you don't want Google to see by using the following protection code:
Note that no value is required between the tags. Simply enter it exactly as indicated above as the very first thing in your thread.
Note, however, that tests have shown that this protection code only works on the first thread-page. Thus, if your thread is popular and begins to span multiple pages and you want the extra pages protected as well, send a PM to the poster of the first reply in each of the subsequent pages with a request to edit his or her post and add the protection code as the first thing in that reply. Alternatively, you may also contact the forum moderator with this request. Again, note that you don't need to do anything for workshop forums as listed earlier -- these protection instructions apply only to threads in non-workshop forums that you feel the need to protect from Google indexing.
And now, for some additional instructions -- and this is nothing new since the Sphere has always functioned this way. Yes, the workshop forums are protected, however, Google has access to the main Eratosphere page (i.e.
www.ablemuse.com/erato/). As any regular Eratosphere user knows by now, there's a column there entitled 'Last Post'. This column lists the title of the latest post that has bubbled up to the top of each forum, either because it's a new post or because it has just been commented on. In that brief to long timespan when the post's title appears on the main page, it's likely that a Google bot will pass by and capture it, which might result in a search later based on that title and poster name succeeding (but linking to the main page, NOT the actual thread). This might be the case even though that post title is no longer in the Last Post column of the main page, having been superseded by something else that has bubbled to the top in the forum where the post occurred.
I have to state again that all of the above are nothing new, and most Eratosphereans who workshop frequently are already aware of this.
So, what do you do if you can't even bear the thought of Google indexing the title of your poem when it briefly appears on the main page? By faking it! That is, when posting your poem/translation/story, give a faux title that makes no difference to you should it get indexed by Google. Essentially, you'll never submit the poem with that title, so editors searching with the real title will never find the fake one that Google might have indexed. Note though that you can still enter the real title in the body of your post, just before the rest of your poem, because that entire field will never be seen or indexed by Google
I may not be explaining myself well so, I’ll try to illustrate:
When creating a new thread, the fields that the system displays, and what should be entered in them are as follows:
TITLE: (enter a fake title here)
MESSAGE: (start with the real title, followed by the rest of the poem or story)
TAGS: (I can’t confirm it, but this field is most likely visible to the search engines, so refrain from entering any keywords that will cause your poem to be successfully searchable in Google).
That may be quite a lot of tedious explaining, but I hope everything is crystal clear to everyone now, and that there is no more issue as to how or where to protect the post you want to make non-indexable and unavailable to Google bots.
Cheers,
…Alex