If you wish to participate here but do not want your posts here connected to your other online activity, I strongly recommend not using any unique identifiers, such as a screen name or email address you use elsewhere, your real name, or any other information that might connect you with other online activity.
Some of you may have noticed that links to posts in the Public forums may show up in searches on Google or other major search engines. This is all part of the site’s purpose of sharing information and support. These links will lead registered members who are logged in to the post.
All the forums are searchable. They are available to the public so web users seeking support and information might have a chance of finding this island of light in an otherwise bleak ocean of trash.
The forums have always been browseable by any visitor to the website, whether by Google or just by coming to HairTell and clicking on “forums.” Every person who is a member now saw those open-to-everyone forums the first time they visited the site, but only after joining were they able to access the other material like member profiles, post and reply privileges, etc.
I have a robots.txt file in place at the site root set to exclude the [color:“red”]paid subscribers only[/color] forums from search engine bots. If, by some chance, Google were to produce a link to a post in a members-only forum, anyone clicking on that link who was not a signed-in member of this forum would be redirected to the sign-in/join-or-go-away page.
This site is a wealth of real human experiences and information that I’d like to come up when some consumer researching hair removal types “hair removal” into Google, or whatever related topic they type in.
Basically, do not post anything that can leave you vulnerable. This is true of any Internet dealings.
There shouldn’t be anything on the internet that you didn’t put there yourself, unless you are involved in some sort of public issue. At this point I can only throw my hands up and sigh if anyone puts private information on the web and then it comes up in a search engine.