[Matt Q]

I've noticed that some members post with a thread title that differs from their poem thread to hide titles from search engines, since this may affect chances of publication in some magazines.

I've just tried searching for poem thread title of mine on Google and it didn't turn up which was pleasing. Then I searched again on Janice's "working title to confuse bots is Poverty" (since that was what had piqued my interest in the first place) and got two hits. It seems that this forum generally manages to hide to the thread titles from bots, but not when the titles appear on the main forum page(s) that show each board and its most recent post. So if you're unlucky enough to be the most recent thread when the bot comes a-crawlin', then into the Google cache you go - so it's a bit of a lottery. Janice's thread was captured here at 11am on the 19th here and here

This left me wondering, how long does Google keep the cached copy before it replaces it with a more recent version. If it's only kept a few days, that's not really an issue is it? It'd have disappeared by the time you send the poem out. But googling Eratosphere I see the most recent cached copy is dated 3 hours ago, so Google is clearly keeping more than one copy, in fact, searching on poems posted in June, I find cached versions of those titles too.

So, I'm sure this may well be a subject that's been raised before, and my apologies for raising it again, but is it not possible to shield the main forum page(s) that show each board and its most recent post? Or would that a problem, one of these being the "front page". Are working titles the only answer?

best,

Matt