BoardReader.com

[JimF]

I was recently reading a thread on a different forum I frequent, and the subject of BoardReader.com storing information from your site on their servers came into the discussion. Is your board indexed there? Do they have your content "cached" (aka stolen and stored)? How do you feel about this?

Is boardreader "caching" your content stealing? Or do you think it's okay and a good thing?

Just curious to see what everyone here, since we all presumably have forums, thinks.

-jim

[Chris Schreiber]

I think it's a great thing... they aren't storing or stealing content at all. It's basically a super search engine that's specifically optimized to index forum pages, especially for vBulletin boards (and those other guys). I've submitted my site there, and it does a great job of returning search results for my pages very quickly. I'd highly recommend submitting your site to both increase traffic to your forums, and to make the board reader search engine more complete.

Also have a look at this: http://www.boardreader.com/partnerspage.asp

[tubedogg]

Let me ask you a question in return...do you have a problem with Google doing the same thing? I'm not sure it's much different than that, though in the case of BoardReader there is no prominent link to the original page that I can find.

[heretic]

I don't have a problem, as long as they don't cache member's information.

the difference I feel beteen boardreader and google is that boardreader has the potential to try and sell that cached information to advertisers.

[irc]

I love it! I use it all the time now to search for stuff on message boards, and I rarely look at the cached version. I go to the source. I've always been frustrated that google didn't do a better deep search of my message board.

[SkuZZy]

It looks like a great site. I submitted my forums to it. I think it's a wonderful idea with alot of potential. I wish i'd thought of it I read their terms and stuff... they look like they are just starting up. Nice site though.

[Joe]

They do strip any advertising / layout on there cached pages. That is the only thing i dont like about the site. I much prefer Google's cache. Take a look at there cache vs the original:

Original: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?threadid=5842
Cache: http://www.boardreader.com/scripts/t...id=3d883592284

The Cache could be improved, but i wont remove my site from there engine over it. I may concider it if i was an advertising based forum.

[Paul J]

To me it looks like the threat is there for boardreader.com to, over time, make it appear as though all that cached content is their own. With the cached site's design and "label" removed it can get pretty dangerous.

I don't like it, now that I actually think about it.

[chrispadfield]

I am sure they will obey the standard robots.txt settings ...

[George L]

lol i did search on boardreaders for animeboards.com and came back with alot of results not actually on my forum hehe

[Erwin]

I did a search for my site too. Interesting to read what other site members say about my forums... good source of unsolicited feedback.

[JimF]

Originally posted by Chris Schreiber
they aren't storing or stealing content at all.

Funny, because this certainly looks like content from my site, but coming from their servers, in their format:

http://www.boardreader.com/scripts/texis.exe/viewthread?query=bronx-bombers.com&ttype=&postid=3d884255200

-jim

[filburt1]

Originally posted by JimF
Funny, because this certainly looks like content from my site, but coming from their servers, in their format:

http://www.boardreader.com/scripts/texis.exe/viewthread?query=bronx-bombers.com&ttype=&postid=3d884255200

-jim

So escentially they wrote a parser along with their cacher. With the disclaimer I don't see that much wrong with it...

[JimF]

Originally posted by filburt1
So escentially they wrote a parser along with their cacher. With the disclaimer I don't see that much wrong with it...

Disclaimer? Disclaimers are worthless. Prior to killing someone, I could state "I am not responsible for killing this person" - but it won't keep me out of jail. The country I live in has copyright laws. I guess yours doesn't.

-jim

[filburt1]

So how does Google get away with caching pages?