We have had this mod installed for a good while now. The only concerning thing is the number of pages we have reported in Search Console as Access Denied.

This is the purpose of the mod - so nothing is wrong.

I'm interested though, is 403 response better than 401 response? Would 401 still report as Access Denied in Search Console?

403 is forbidden, Google might think forbidden is better than 401 but I can't say for any certainty.

What I read was that 401 is preferred when the entire site should not be accessible and 403 is prefered when it's a specific page that is not accessible.

Hi BOP5 - I've been trying to find a definitive answer too.

Surely there is a right or wrong, not just a preferred response. Obviously neither 401 or 403 are wrong, but there must be some standard. It's not as if forum pages that require a login are a new thing on web.

I will keep searching, and hopefully find something definitive.

Cheers

Joe, a question. I have changed my forum to https, do I must change in plugins the code (http) to (https) ?

Thank you

Nothing that I can see should have to change for https.

Installed (twice) for testing....

We use vBulletin 4.1.3 pl8...

Works great, except we have a conflict with Paul's "Display Unread Posts" mod v4.1.7.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=231060

When the HTTP mod is installed, Paul's mod shows the unread post count (top right corner of web site) as it should, however, when one clicks on the post number to view them, vBulletin shows page saying there are no unread posts, even though there are. You can click the "What's New" tab and the new posts show fine there.

Tried to diagnose as follows:

1. Turned HTTP mod OFF (still a conflict)
2. Disabled HTTP mod (still a conflict)
3. Uninstalled HTTP mod and Paul's "Display Unread Posts" mod v4.1.7 began to work fine again.
4. Re-insalled HTTP mod and problem returned.
5. Finally uninstalled HTTP mod and left things alone.

Hope this helps someone else .. :)

Regards,
Doug

Thank you. I have a similar problem with at least one forum and was unable to solve it. I thought it might have something to do with post counts not synching unread posts correctly. I am going to try your solution.

BOP5: If it is confirmed as a conflict between the two add-ons, can it be resolved?

I'm sorry but that makes no sense, if the mod is disabled from Product Manager it is basically the same as being uninstalled, there are no files to upload. If you need to remove the mod for Paul's mod to work I suspect any mod removed would fix it, it may be some sort of product cache issue.

In any case only the 4.2.0 version of Paul's mod is available for download at this time. Looking at the code for that I don't see any places they would conflict.

The sequence is repeatable and I've installed and uninstalled the HTTP mode 3 times to validate the steps and the same results occur every time. I have left the HTTP mod uninstalled and moved on, but thank you for your efforts.... much appreciated ...

I do use Sucuri's firewall protection system, which caches our site around the world, so perhaps it's having an affect only with this mod, although I don't know why.

https://sucuri.net/

Thanks again.... :)

Regards,
Doug