From Phanfare Support

You control whether Phanfare prohibits search engines such as Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN from indexing your site. If you would like to be indexed and found by Google, Yahoo and other search engines, then you can specifically turn on that feature within Phanfare Photo.

By default, new accounts created within Phanfare have search engine indexing turned on and do not have a password set. If you want privacy, you should add a password or minimally, turn off search engine indexing.

Table of contents

1 If you use a PC 2 If you use a Mac 3 Background 3.1 What is appropriate for me? 3.2 Allowing open access but protecting some content

If you use a PC

1. Open Phanfare Photo.
2. Select the "Share -> Website Options..." menu.
3. Select the "Security" tab.
4. Choose the desired option in the "Allow Search Engine Access" box.
5. Click "OK".

If you use a Mac

Click the "Website Options" button on the toolbar. Select the "Security" tab and choose "Allow search engines to index your website." Note that if you've protected your Phanfare site with a password, it won't be indexable.

Background

When you type a search term into a search bar, or at Google or Yahoo, you are using a search engine. Search engines go out with crawlers that automatically scour the world wide web for information and index that information. Search engines respect a site's desire not to be indexed. By default, we tell search engines to go away from our albums because many people appreciate the privacy.

The benefit of being indexed by a search engine is that people can find your site easily, without you sending them an invitation, by typing your name or other information on your site. If you password protect your Phanfare site, we also block search engine access (The search engine could not get past the password screen but we tell it not to even index the password screen). If you don't have a password on your Phanfare site than it is open for all to see, if they know where to look. But if there are no links to your Phanfare site on the web, and if you block search engines from indexing your site, then you probably enjoy a bit of "security through obscurity." Nobody knows you exist.

So there are three basic levels openness you can choose from:

• Lock down - password protect your site, keep search engines away too.
• Open site, block search engine access - allows someone who knows your site address, such as public.phanfare.com, to see your photos and videos, but will not allow someone to find your via the search engines (Google, Yahoo et al)
• Open site, search engine indexing turned on - Allows open access to your site and allows the search engines to index your images and descriptions. This level of openness means that people going to Yahoo, Google or typing your name into a search bar might find your collection at Phanfare.

What is appropriate for me?

That depends on how you use Phanfare. If you are maintaining a collection of family photos for close family and friends, are a private person or have pictures of young children on your site, we would recommend password protection or at least turning off search engine access. If you are running a business and using Phanfare to host images for that business, then you probably want as much exposure as possible.

Allowing open access but protecting some content

Any album that you separately password protect is automatically hidden from the search engines. Hence, if you desire an open site and would like that site found by the search engines, while protecting certain sensitive albums, you can accomplish that:

• Don't set a site password
• Allow the search engines in
• Password protect any sensitive albums.