View the whole list

View the whole list . Is an option that I sometimes use to view who is looking at what .

At this current time there are approximately 136 guests viewing my forum , 0 registered , 1 hidden ( me ) , and 3 bots . The bots are accounted for .

There are many different hidden forums in my sight only accessible by me .

There is one that is accessible to " members only "

And 1 that is out of commision . Not accessible to anyone .

I have asked this before . How then is it that there are 2 guests viewing the hidden forum accessible to members only and 1 viewing the gallery that doesn't even have any access to it ?







How is this even possible ? And if it is possible ? How can I stop it ?

Thank you .

Hello

If guests are looking at those pages, they will only see the login boxes....it could be search engine bots

search engines and bots will not access the sections they are not allowed to....they will simply see the login page

Guests includes anyone who is not logged into the forum.  So those guests viewing areas not  access to be guests could be members not logged into the forum.   Also members could be giving links to non-members.  They will only see the log in boxes if the the areas are only access to members or staff.

Also if an area was access to certain groups, but then is changed, they still have the link to the area.

If a member or staff member has shared a topic in one of these areas on social media, search engines will index the link.

skouliki wrote:Hello

If guests are looking at those pages, they will only see the login boxes....it could be search engine bots

search engines and bots will not access the sections they are not allowed to....they will simply see the login page

SLGray wrote:Guests includes anyone who is not logged into the forum.  So those guests viewing areas not  access to be guests could be members not logged into the forum.   Also members could be giving links to non-members.  They will only see the log in boxes if the the areas are only access to members or staff.

Also if an area was access to certain groups, but then is changed, they still have the link to the area.

If a member or staff member has shared a topic in one of these areas on social media, search engines will index the link.

How can a member gain access to a forum that is open to members only if they are logged as guests or not logged in as members ? It should be impossible .

I am the only staff member .

You say above that even Search engines and bots will not access the sections they are not allowed to....they will simply see the login page .

No one other than myself and logged in members can see the hidden forum . Members not logged in as members should not be able to see the hidden forum .

I cannot see the hidden forum when I am logged out . That is how I test it .

I do not understand what you are saying .

If I am a member and have access to the area, I can visit the area as a guest.   I can also give that link to everyone not a member.

Even having the link does not mean I see exactly what is in it as a guest.

SLGray wrote:If I am a member and have access to the area, I can visit the area as a guest.   I can also give that link to everyone not a member.

Even having the link does not mean I see exactly what is in it as a guest.

Wow ! That sucks . I didn't know that . I feel like that is bad security .

This is what i get after I log out .



And I'm the founder , owner , admin .

I am really trying to figure out what you are saying . I have been trying what you are saying . I enter as a guest . I attempt to log into various forums , deleted , blocked , hidden . and private for my use only .

I am not able to access them at all . I find your responses very troubling . If members can access hidden forums as guests . And share those links with friends that log in as guests . Then hiding a forum is worthless .

Especially if I myself am not able to do what you suggest .

I think your information is wrong . And you still haven't satisfied my question .

Good morning!

Every website on the Internet has a certain set of links to different pages.
There are also different options for handling links and users who are not allowed to click on certain links. Some services make an automatic redirect to another page, and others (like our service) request information about the account or simply say that the user has no rights.

As we have already told you many times when a user goes to a certain address, some information about the user is transmitted to the server. The server first checks the access rights. If you have permissions - it responds in the form of information that you see as an administrator. If the user does not have access rights - the server refuses to transmit the information. If a guest clicks on a link - the server wants to first identify the person's role on the forum (regular user/moderator/admin).

For example, you can go to the AP even on a support forum, but you will get nothing but a window with information in response.

@azwiz sometimes it may be that bots and search engines use an "intelligent script" to scan your forum.
Let's say you have a public sub-forum https://help.forumotion.com/f1-first-forum and a second one https://help.forumotion.com/f3-third-forum - the bot may understand the pattern of the pages

Code: /f-ID-

and simply try to access all the pages, in case a page is supposed to be visible to everyone but there isn't any link around (like isolated pages).

So the bot tries to access these pages trying with all the ID

This is one of the possible explanations I had

Niko wrote:@azwiz sometimes it may be that bots and search engines use an "intelligent script" to scan your forum.
Let's say you have a public sub-forum https://help.forumotion.com/f1-first-forum and a second one https://help.forumotion.com/f3-third-forum - the bot may understand the pattern of the pages

Code: /f-ID-

and simply try to access all the pages, in case a page is supposed to be visible to everyone but there isn't any link around (like isolated pages).

So the bot tries to access these pages trying with all the ID

This is one of the possible explanations I had

Okay I'll buy that for a dollar . That a bot can access some hidden forums while appearing to be a guest .

I will accept that .

Thank you . Solved for now .

@azwiz in any case don't worry, they cannot see anything if they don't have the permissions
It's probably really only the bots trying to scan certain pages based on "hypothesis" as I explained

Have a nice day