Can I take control of search engine bots?

[Aarmin]

I've been looking through the Admin control panel, but there is no search bot settings anywhere. Have I just not found the location, or does vBulletin seriously not have any bot settings?

I'm quite disappointed; all I want to do is create a user-group for search engines and assign a custom theme/template (that is very minimalistic). Other forum software allow such settings.

[Lynne]

If yo want a nice minimalistic style for them, just turn on the archive - vboptions > search engine friendly archive > forum archive enabled > yes

[Aarmin]

Where can I go to add or edit the bot listing? Its not in and vBs menu options.

I am going to leave the archive turned off; all Google does is spider whichever is easier (the simplistic archive in this case).

[Lynne]

I don't know what you mean by "edit the bot listing".

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Edit the ./includes/xml/spiders_vbulletin.xml file.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by Marco van Herwaarden

Edit the ./includes/xml/spiders_vbulletin.xml file.

Ah, the Spiders List. There is a thread on vb.com where a user is keeping tracker of the spiders and updating the list. Do a search over there for "spider*" in "titles only". I believe the username is Dream.