jampacked wrote:The site earns money from Google ads. Easy to forget this if you use AdBlock, but turn it off and see what the page looks like. That's why the site is fully visible and searchable by Google, it has to be. So they want maximum pagerank, maximum pagehits.
Otherwise, if the site was hidden from Google, the owners would be begging members to pay/donate all the time as on most private sites.
It's pointless to complain. They won't change this.
I don't think the solution has to be as extreme as removing the site from google. I just think viewing of comments and links to files should be restricted to registered members. There are plenty of forums that run things this way and still flourish.
BTW, even pages which restrict view of comments and file DL links could still display ads for non members. You just place a note in the DL link area that the links are limited to registered members. The end result might be many more registered members as well.