# Private discourse and crawling, can it happen?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** seo
**Created:** [March 13, 2023, 11:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937 "2023-03-13T11:17:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![mfrakesSIC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mfrakesSIC](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mfrakesSIC)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2023, 11:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937/1 "2023-03-13T11:17:21Z")

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Working on a private/log in required discourse and got to wondering if the log in required feature stops bots which I would expect it to do and if so is there was a way to allow bots through anyway?

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### Author: ![Jagster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jagster/32/192154_2.png) [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2023, 11:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937/2 "2023-03-13T11:36:49Z")

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Bots without real users? No. Or well, it can be done but not easily nor reliably.

But… why? You are tagged this as #seo but trying to put real users behind a wall will kill your seo right away. As it should.

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### Author: ![RGJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/rgj/32/523185_2.png) [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2023, 1:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937/3 "2023-03-13T13:04:57Z")

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You could look into the [Category Lockdown](https://meta.discourse.org/t/advertise-activity-in-a-private-category-discourse-category-lockdown/70649) plugin which can cater for this.

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### Author: ![mfrakesSIC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mfrakesSIC](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mfrakesSIC)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937/4 "2023-03-13T13:23:24Z")

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Thank you kindly, I thought as much but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

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### Author: ![mfrakesSIC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mfrakesSIC](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mfrakesSIC)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-discourse-and-crawling-can-it-happen/257937/5 "2023-03-13T13:23:41Z")

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I’ll definitely have a look at that! Thank you!