> > Has anyone come up with a way to design a genealogical website so > > that it is impossible for commercial outfits to harvest the > > information? Or at least difficult enough to make it not worth the > > trouble? I've toyed with mounting everything as graphics. Just > > putting up a GEDCOM seems to me the perfect bait for the commercial > > outfits' "bots." Finding a way to foil this particularly nasty > > habit of the commercial concerns would be a good use of time, to my > > mind! > > > > "Karen Rhodes" <[email protected]> > > I wouldn't say its impossible for commercial outfits to harvest the > info from the site I created, but I think it's difficult. I > basically created two versions of my family history site: a "lite" > public version and a family-only private version using server > security features with a unique username/password for each person to > keep the "meat" out of public view. > > I do still want to help those individuals that may find use in what > I've researched, so I create public versions of family tree branches > in graphic format, which while tedious, makes it a little harder for > robots to harvest. And I never post GEDCOM files. Of course I'm > happy to talk with anyone who thinks there may be a family > connection and share appropriate levels of information that way. > > As a last measure, I also make use of a robots.txt file to keep the > search indexing robots that "play nice" out of directories or files > I don't want indexed. > > My public pages are at http://www.mannfamily.cc/public/ in case > anyone is curious! > > Joseph Mann <[email protected]> Another way to deal with the issue is to create a private yahoogroup, limiting membership, and limiting access rights to members. You can store up to 20 Mb in files there. It provides maillist capabilities as well. Membership to a group is by invitation. Ed "Edward Feustel" <[email protected]>