We noticed in the analytics we’ve had anonymous users from time to time even though the site is configured to require authentication to read content on the site, disallowing anonymous access. As the contents of our forum are intended to be secure, could someone from Discourse please confirm that only authenticated users can access our forum? I took several screenshots to share, but can’t find a way to upload them. I think you get the idea without them though.

Yeah we expect some anonymous traffic even on private sites. A couple answers from a previous topic: [image]Seeing anonymous user and crawler traffic, even though site is private that crawler traffic is likely from crawlers hitting community.yoursite.com/login [image]Seeing anonymous user and crawler traffic, even though site is private In addition to what Kris wrote, there will also be an anonymous request for your site’s login page or home page at the beginning of each SSO login request. Your site’s TOS and Privacy pages can also probably be accessed by anonymous users.

Anonymous Users When 'Login Required' checked

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awesomerobot (Kris) March 5, 2021, 11:59pm 2

Yeah we expect some anonymous traffic even on private sites. A couple answers from a previous topic:

Topic		Replies	Views
Seeing anonymous user and crawler traffic, even though site is private Data & reporting	3	1038	September 9, 2021
Understanding anonymous metrics on a login required site Data & reporting	5	1349	February 6, 2019
Why do anonymous page views accumulate on login-only forum? Data & reporting	3	778	December 27, 2018
Consolidated pageviews: Logged in users vs Anonymous in a "private" community Data & reporting	1	862	December 29, 2019
Anonymous users appearing in pageview stats on invite only site Data & reporting	2	493	August 27, 2020

Anonymous Users When 'Login Required' checked

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