I use a template based programe called "Subdreamer" to build my websites. They use a "robot txt" file to keep bots out of sensative areas. How does E-Blah do it?

If boards are password protected, Bots won't be able to crawl them, If they're accessible by guests, they're accessible by bots too. But try not to hijack threads  

Quoted from iCONICA

Not to post, I agree..

I meant not allowing guest access at all.. So when users enter your domain, they see the login page requesting them to either sign in or sign up.

I once did that quite by mistake and noticed an increase in people signing up but not taking it any further than that, ie. not making any postings!  

Once i had corrected my error and put it to no guest postings instead, people began joining and posting, not sure if it may just look good cos for a while lots of new members joined up... then again my forum is oh so teeny statistics wise that i feel quite small and insignificant when i look throo some of these forums posted here

... now wheres that blushing emoticon when u need it! lol

That wouldn't really work in my case. My forum is full of ads, Which are removed upon registration. So that's an incentive.