Today, we rolled out an update for Hoop.la, UBB Forum, and QuestionShark that adds two major new features:

1. PDF and Document Search

The content of uploaded documents (including PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and more) will now be indexed, which means they will be searchable!

2. Search Engine Spider/Robot Throttling Option

Some sites get hammered by search engine robots trying to index their content, especially older sites that have lots of content.  In some cases, a high percentage of overall traffic to the site can be attributable to these search engine bots.

Thus, we have added a new tool to allow you to tame these bots, if necessary. If your billable page views are getting close to your plan limit, this option may come in handy.

On your site Control Panel's Statistics page, you'll find the new Throttling option right below your billable page view stats.  You can even see the current percentage of traffic attributable to these robots.

You have three choice- No Throttling (default), Standard Throttling (which limits the bots to approximately 20% of your overall page views, and Custom Throttling.

Most sites will never need to use the "throttling" option, but it's a valuable option for sites that need it.

Please note of course that throttling search engine bots will prevent your site from being updated as often, which may negatively impact your SEO, so definitely consider the pros and cons before you enable it.