I have a forum and i have locked part of it to encourage user registrations. Only registered/logged in users can read those pages. Does this affect google indexing on those pages?? If yes, how can I rectify this? B2w, I use SMF forum software! my forums : http://www.oraclepassport.com/forums/index.php Please advice.
It shoud stop google. You can install a plug in for firefox to pretent to be google, that way you'll know. It's call user agent swithcher. Once installed go to your site as google bot. If blocked you can set forums to allow google to see posts bit not unregistered users. This is normally done with a htaccess rule. Bit means people using the above tool can get into the forum without an account.
You can do something like what experts-exchange.com does. They seem to rank very well for many tech problem solutions. They show part of the article for bots which is enough to get indexed. I dont know if its valid though.
Of course google can't get through something that the site set as private. Other site just open the contents to the public but they place ads that's kinda annoying and remind visitors to register/log in to get rid of the ads.
it can affect site traffic, if your forum post are searchable but can't view by anyone then you are not welcoming them to your site..
cookies for robots its affect the rankings ........................ you should allow all robots in robots.txt