Private groups should still be visible to search engines

[John Valentine]

Hi, can I suggest that you allow part of a private group to be visible to search engines, 2 reasons.

1. even though it is private that doesn't mean you don't want people to know about it, cause it attracts the to your site

2. I create public groups based around events that occur every 2 weeks, when I make the group private after the event is finished I lose all search engine juice on the key terms, ie 'Chorley business networking' but because I have regular Chorley meetings I want to be known for this search as much as possible in google

So, why not allow the top half of an event to be open to google, and everything else hidden. Below is the copy of a top half section.

MANCHESTER AIRPORT/ WILMSLOW business networking - Bizset business ...

August 3, 2012 from 9:15am to 11:15am – Manchester Airport / WilmslowBizset MANCHESTER AIRPORT/ WILMSLOW business networking events offers you up to two months free membership after your first networking meeting!•4 focused meetings with any business networking in the…Organized by John Valentine | Type: wigan, business, networking, event, manchester, wilmslow, altrincham, bolton, stockportYou are attending.

[Eric Suesz]

We don't have any current plans to change the way privacy for groups works. It's hard to know exactly what privacy choices everyone would want on a really granular level, but we can definitively make it so that private groups are fully private, which is what we've done. I would suggest, if the goal is to make people aware of private groups, that you might consider promoting private groups. Make a house ad or put up a Text Box on the Main Page promoting private groups that you want people to join. I know that's not what you were probably thinking about, but just want to put in a word for promoting things. Organic growth is great, but often it takes some promotion to really get things moving. 

Similarly, I would say that leaving the "top half" of an event public and the bottom half private might be kind of tricky because everyone may not want the same details private/public. Where's the half line supposed to fall? Which details should be public and which private? Seems like a lot of choices to make for such fleeting content.  

You mention that you create a public group and then later make it private. Just out of curiosity: Why not simply leave those groups public? 

[John Valentine]

Re the last point. They are public events to start with as anyone can book on, they have to pay on the door of the event to attend, so they then need a receipt. After the event takes place I use the Event page to post all the receipts - so this I feel is private information for the eyes only of people who attended, in addition I don't want competitors or other people knowing how many attended and who attended hence why I make the group private after the event.

I would have thought privacy in 99% of cases relates to who has joined and what they have said. So that means attendance list and discussion forums etc. But I'm not sure I can see any reason why anyone would want the actual group description private. Like I say when I make it private I lose all my juicy google terms, ie, 'manchester, business networking' which is what people in Manchester search on if they want to find a networking event, I would be higher up google if my 72 Manchester events each year were still seen by google, instead of being lost.

I can understand that you can only do so much and the choice that has been made is 100% private or 100% public, and that is nice and black and white.