Search facilities disabled for guest users

[xantia_v6]

We quite often get a lot of traffic on the forum from "bot farms" which are (apparently) trying to download all of our content. This is something that we just have to accept, and there are accepted practices for this sort of operation which allow us to control what they can access, but some of them are badly behaved and just pretend to be guest users. Earlier this week there were more than 800 simultaneously accessing the forum!

Our current temporary server has limited processing power and was slowing down, so I have disabled guest users from accessing the forum search system. This made a surprising difference to server loading.

You will notice that none of the search options in the forum header are visible until you login to the forum. We are considering making this change permanent, subject to user feedback.

[mickthemaverick]

Sounds like a sensible idea to me. I honestly don't see why we should be open to guest's searching and gaining info that the members have gained by donating to get access to.

[wurlycorner]

Two minds on this (on the permanent question). The point of the internet was to make information freely available to all and if I’m researching a fault on a friends car (or a marque that I don’t own) do I want to join up every forum under the sun? No.
But on the other hand, members shouldn’t be suffering a site slowed down by bots and I don’t think ai should profit from free expertise provided by people that might graft to get to the bottom of something.

[myglaren]

I'm sure that the search function was very useful to people needing answers but that led to them registering and increasing the knowledge pool.
Just a shame that it is being plundered and abused now.

[Sloppysod]

Is there any way, to lock down the search results, so if a 'guest' searches for something only a small section of the post is visible, like the news papers?
or
Is there a way to limit the number of searches (say 2 or 3)per IP address?

Then all restrictions lifted once they have signed up.

[bobins]

Limit the number of search results ? i.e. you only get a max of 10 results if you're not a registered user ?
Limit how far back the search looks - as in : it'll only search the last 5 years of results ?

[xantia_v6]

We have decided to revert the guest search settings to the previous (enabled) settings. I will do this when moving the forum back to its proper server, today or tomorrow.

In the longer term I will investigate other ways of throttling traffic from unauthorised bots.

[Stickyfinger]

Two minds on this (on the permanent question). The point of the internet was to make information freely available to all .......................

Here was me thinking it was to save the embarrassment of buying magazines from the top shelf and to enable the Chinese to steal intellectual property !

Lots of sites limit viewing of images and prevent searches....NP with it myself

[CitroJim]

Two minds on this (on the permanent question). The point of the internet was to make information freely available to all .......................

Here was me thinking it was to save the embarrassment of buying magazines from the top shelf and to enable the Chinese to steal intellectual property !

[wurlycorner]

Here was me thinking it was to save the embarrassment of buying magazines from the top shelf and to enable the Chinese to steal intellectual property

Well that may indeed be where it then found its feet, yes…