red58 has a point.. if you won't let visitors (non registered people) view/read the threads, then letting a spider crawl them dosen't make alot of sence.
If it were me, i'd set permissions on a few areas (like General Discussion) to allow visitors to be able to read them, and make those "crawl-able".
You want to encourage new people to find the board and sign up, and a good way to do that is make areas like the General Discussion searchable.. that way every word in every post in that area becomes a keyword.
When a searcher finds a link to a thread in the General area, they get to looking around, then think "Hey.. this really is a cool place, I should sign up and ask my question".
In the past i've signed up to numerous message boards that wouldn't let you read any content untill you signed up.. only to find out that there isn't any content in there worth signing up for!
As a result, most times I come across a message board that requires signup before I can read whats going on, I simply don't bother.
On signup your asking folks to provide their eMail address and name without even letting them get a look at what they're signing up for.. IMO, you outta let them at least know the juice is going to be worth the squeeze.
I'm sure there are more than 8,000 people in the world with both a stovebolt and internet access.. how many of them have found this site but never bothered to sign up because they didn't want to give up their eMail address without knowing first that the message board was cool?
How many of them have searched Google for common keywords found in the General Discussion board, but never found that thread because it isn't searchable?
I don't advocate making ALL the threads readable by visitors, because you have to have something to encourage them to sign up and be a contributing member of the board, instead of being a "lurker".. but I guarentee making the General Discussion board readable by visitors would increase traffic.. and the more traffic you have, the more clicks on that pretty JC Whitney Ad you'll get.
