Member Bots 1.0 - Allow bots to act as members

Morpheus

New Member
Member Bots 1.0 - Allow bots to act as members
Code:
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108070
This small mod allows you to treat search engine robots (i.e. GoogleBot, Yahoo Slurp)
as registered users instead of guests, as they are treated by default in VBulletin.

This is handy if your site allows limited access to guests, but full access to registered
users. By default, a search engine robot would only be allowed to index what a guest could
see, but with this mod, it would allow them to fully index your site as a registered user.

WARNING! This mod requires a very small edit to a VBulletin core file. This means whenever
you upgrade to a new version of VBulletin, you'll need to re-do this edit, if you overwrite
this file. If the idea of editing a VBulletin core file bothers you, don't install this mod!


To install:

1. Unzip the product-memberbot.xml file on your system.

2. Go to your VBulletin AdminCP and click on Manage Products under the Plugin Manager section.

3. Click on Add/Import Product.

4. Click on Browse on the first line (Upload the XML from your computer) and locate the
product-memberbot.xml file. Click on Import to upload it to the system.

5. Click on Plugin Manager, and ensure that the new plugin named Bot Checker, which
is found under the init_startup hook, is enabled.

6. Now the fun part, you'll need to edit the core VBulletin file init.php which is located in
the includes directory under your forum home.

For example, if your forum home is located in /home/blah/forum, then init.php is in
/home/blah/forum/includes

If you can edit the file on the server without having to download it, more power to you.

In init.php, find this line (should be near the very bottom of the file, line 403 in mine):

PHP:
 if (!empty($db->explain))

Add ABOVE this line:

PHP:
 if ($is_bot == 1) {
        $vbulletin->userinfo['usergroupid'] = 2;
}

NOTE: My registered users group is ID #2. Yours may be different, you may change this to
any group ID you like.

7. Save init.php and upload back to your server if you had to download the file to edit it.
If you're editing on the server, save it, and that's it!

=================================================================================================
That's it! Search Engine bots should now "see" your forum as a regular user, not a guest.


Enjoy!
 

Morpheus

New Member
On vBulletin 3.6.8 you will find the code
PHP:
if (!empty($db->explain))
around the line 457 of the init.php file.
 

Tigerz

New Member
when i change the init file i get this error meesage
saying it couldnt find something on line 369 of the init.php file so i changed it back but why didnt this work
 

pablinn_d

New Member
I did exactly the steps, but Google Spider continues showing as a guest. I can see it on online.php but not as a registered user in Who's Online?

What can I do?

Regards..

PS: Using 3.6.8
 

Morpheus

New Member
Yes, however bots can see all content as registred members (this hack is made to prevent guest to see content and let bots browse your site normally).
 

pablinn_d

New Member
As I couldn't make it work. I created an user named Google.com. In usergroups "Search Spiders". I configured adsense to login there as that user, so I get Google.com online when adsense is crawling my site.
Although Google's Spider is crawling and Google.com doesn't appear as online. It means that the robot is just for search index. And If I get it Online, it's because Google AdSense is crawling, not normal crawl.
 
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