Are bots classed as guests?

[gavpedz]

The reason I ask is that I want to limit guests to seeing forums and topic titles but not the posts within a topic. 

Firstly is this possible? Secondly would this stop Google indexing the posts and topics? 

[opentype]

Yes to all. 

[gavpedz]

Ok thanks. Not an option then, don't want to limit Google indexing content really. 

[Adriano Faria]

Probably this can help:

 

[opentype]

14 minutes ago, gavpedz said:

Ok thanks. Not an option then, don't want to limit Google indexing content really. 

So you want different content for crawler guests vs. human guests?
There are plugins on the marketplace for that, but be warned: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en

[Aiwa]

Tread carefully. If you expose different content to a bot, than what is displayed to a legit guest that comes to your site, it can hurt your ranking. 

[gavpedz]

Yeah I think I will leave it don't want to risk ranking really. Not necessarily different content as such. I want to limit what guests can see meaning they have to register to view all content but I still want all content crawled by bots. 

[opentype]

Quote

Not necessarily different content as such.

Well …

11 minutes ago, gavpedz said:

I want to limit what guests can see meaning they have to register to view all content but I still want all content crawled by bots. 

So you want different content! You want Google to index what is on that page and then when the user opens that page based on a search result, he should NOT see the same as Google, but less or just a login form. That is cloaking. 

[gavpedz]

Ah yes I see what you mean. I am going to leave it anyway. Thanks though.