Google is a search engine that indexes any and every page/site that is publicly available, and Multiply is no exception. Every public page on Multiply -- the ones posted for 'Everyone' or that can be accessed by any person even if not logged in to a Multiply account -- will be indexed by Google and will appear in the search results if relevant.

Multiply takes advantage of this in its own Search feature (the one in the top navigation bar): the results are retrieved by Google, who also 'sponsors' the search, generating revenue for Multiply. It's simpler, cheaper and faster than having it's own search engine and also helps Multiply earn some money. And you can rest calm knowing that only your public posts will appear in the results.

But Google takes some times to index new pages, so if you publish a new post today, wait a couple of days so it will appear in the search results (both here and on the 'generic' Google page). In the mean time, using tags is a great way to organize and easily retrieve your posts.


If you have any questions about this or other topics, please title accordingly and post >>> HERE

THANKS ! Your assistance is greatly appreciated! :)

Some people want their entire site on Multiply to be private in every way.  Others want everything to be public.  But the majority of Multiply users are somewhere in the middle, wanting to share some things with the world, but reserving some other bits of info. just for their closest friends and family.

Multiply's privacy settings are very customizable.  It's possible to show some pieces of information about yourself, without giving it all away.  The following is a quick summary that will help you set up your Multiply experience to be exactly the way you want it.


if you want to make a post private, then make sure you select something other than "everyone" in the privacy settings at the end of the post.   (if you already published the post but realized later that you forgot that step, you can go back and edit the post and change it.)  posting something for "everyone" will make it so that search engines can find it.  (some people want this.  it's a handy feature for people who want to have a public blog in addition to the private blogging that they do for friends and family only.)

if you don't want search engines to find your content, select anything other than "everyone" when making the post.  this would mean selecting "network," "contacts" or individuals. 

if you want to just send something out to all your friends, say, or just your family, you can choose "contacts" and then modify that even further to include only your contacts that are friends (or family, or coworkers). 

don't forget that any replies you make on a friend or family members threads will automatically fall under whatever privacy setting they have made for their post.  so if they have set their post to everyone, then not only is their post available for the world to see and for search engines to pick up, but your replies are also.

if you want to make your profile private, you need to go to your profile, click on the "edit profile" link to the upper right of the profile and change your privacy settings for each section.

if you want to make your last name, email address and birthday private, you need to click on the settings link in the upper right hand corner, and then select "my account" and change that there.

if you want to make your guestbook private, you need to click on "customize my site" on your home page.  then go to the box that's around your guestbook and click "edit."  change your privacy settings there. to read the guestbook faq, click here.

if you don't want anyone to know where you live, not even your contacts, you can change the zip code setting to 00000.

if you want to make your groups and contact info. private, click on "customize my site." then go to the box that has either your contacts or groups in it. (this works pretty similarly for both.) click on "edit." the privacy settings are the first things that you can change. 

note: hiding your contact box or your groups box does not make the information private.  someone could find it via URL.  so make sure you change your privacy settings before hiding the box (if you choose to hide the box).  also, even though you've hidden the boxes, you'll still see the links to those sections under your headshot.  others won't be able to see it, but you will.

also, the A#1 most important rule to remember when concerned about privacy is to never ever ever accept someone as a contact that you don't trust.  if you do that, you pretty much make all the rest of the privacy controls on multiply rather worthless.  (it's like having a well guarded castle but letting in any visitor that arrives at the gate.   ;-)    )  for more information on adding contacts, please check out this post.

Related posts include:

How to Make Your Site Private
Privacy Settings

On many networking sites, the goal seems to be to collect as many contacts as you can, almost like collecting charms for a bracelet.  I've even seen one site give away a free ipod to the person who could add the most contacts in a week.  But on Multiply, there's a different mentality (encouraged by the staff and supported by many users -- like me).  The goal here is to attempt to mirror your real life world online.

In other words, your relationships here, the people you hang out with online, should reflect the relationships you have off line.  Then, through your network, you can get to know other people in a natural way -- through your contacts: your friends and family.  You might also meet people in groups.  But again, that's a natural way to meet someone, like joining a club and gradually making friends over time as you attend meetings.

So when you're thinking of clicking that link to "Add as Contact" you might want to run a little test first.  Imagine that you're not online, but sitting in your living room.  You see someone walk down the sidewalk.  Do you invite them inside your house to chill in the living room with you, or do you wave and let them go their way?  If you know them well enough to let them into your house, then click away.  That person would make a great contact.  But if you're still at only a wave or a short chat about the weather level with a person, then wait awhile.  Don't add them yet.  Wait and see if you cross paths again -- if you're "natural" friends. 

I've seen several people here on Multiply asking how to block contacts.  Ironically, this is akin to inviting someone into your house, then calling the police over to lock them up for breaking and entering.  My mother always told me not to talk to strangers.  A natural second step is not to invite them into your house.  Don't invite them into your Multiply "house" either.  You don't make friends in the real world in a matter of seconds.  Why act that way in the virtual world? 

Multiply provides avenues to get to know people gradually and naturally.  I encourage you to use them.

• Large pictures may make the column where the Guestbook is in your main page too wide. Either remove the entry or ask the poster to remove the code. Also, you can add this code to your Custom CSS to display a scrollbar when it happens:

          #home_guestbook .replybox { overflow:auto; }

          or, if you don't want it to display any image at all:

          #home_guestbook .replybody img { display: none; }

• How to remove/delete messages from your Guestbook:

            At your main page, you won't see the links to delete comments or edit your own replies in your Guestbook. To do this, you have to go to the Guestbook page. You can get there using one of these ways:
            - at your main page, click on the link below your Guestbook "View All NNN Comments"
            - use this link: http://Your_Username.multiply.com/guestbook (replace Your User_Name with your actual Multiply username)

            If you cannot find the delete link for the offending graphic, you can try this: use the delete link from another comment and try to modify it to delete what you want, like this: get the delete link from the previous or next entry (right-click on the link and use 'Copy Link Location' on Firefox or the analogous command in your browser), copy it to your browser's location bar (the one where you type the http://...) and modify it to reflect the entry you want to delete.

For instance, the delete link to my 250th entry in my guestbook is something like this:
javascript:confirmLink("Are you sure you want to delete this reply?", "/item/delete-reply/lfom:guestbook:1+250?xurl=http%3A%2F%2Flfom.multiply.com%2F&usertoken=manylettershere")

So, if I want to delete the next entry, I simply copy it to the my browser's location bar, replace 250 with 251 like this:
javascript:confirmLink("Are you sure you want to delete this reply?", "/item/delete-reply/lfom:guestbook:1+251?xurl=http%3A%2F%2Flfom.multiply.com%2F&usertoken=manylettershere")

and press the ENTER (or RETURN) key. A confirmation dialog should appear, then click on OK.

• Also, you can edit the number of comments displayed at your main page and the access (privacy) level if you click on Customize My Site and then on the Edit link found in the Guestbook box (see the image below).

• You can now completely disable HTML in your Guestbook replies, just edit it in your main page (see the picture below).

• If you can't see your Guestbook and you didn't hide it using the Hide link while your main page is in 'Customization Mode', probably you've set yout Homepage to 'Linear View'. Return it to 'Boxes View' to see your Guestbook again:

            http://multiply.com/setup/pages/home

• If you are still experiencing problems about deleting stuff in your Guestbook and you are using Firefox, you can go to its menu and select: View -> Page Style -> No Style (look to a similar option in your browser if you're using another program) to disable CSS in your page so you can use the delete links to remove any offending material. Then you can enable it again.

• Groups normally don't have a Guestbook, but you can display one if you change the Page Layout to Linear instead of Box View for the Home Page. (DEPRECATED: does not work anymore)
  

• If you try to add HTML code in a comment at someone else's Guestbook that isn't your contact, the HTML will be removed. Of course, the same happens in your Guestbook for people that aren't in your contact list. (DEPRECATED: does not work this way anymore, if you don't want HTML in your Guestbook, disable it completely as explained above)

If you have any questions about this or other topics, please title accordingly and post >>> HERE

THANKS ! Your assistance is greatly appreciated! :)

You have many entries in your site and now want to make it all private so non-contacts and anonymous (not logged in to Multiply) can't see your posts?


Unfortunately, there is no way so far to make it at once. You have to edit post by post, and change the privacy (access) settings. If you want more control about who can see it and a few new options while composing/editing entries, turn on Advanced Posting in your settings (go to Posting Options):
http://multiply.com/setup/advanced-posting


You may want to do it to your account and profile (personal data) settings too:
settings --> My Account
http://multiply.com/setup/account

View Profile (http://Your_Username.multiply.com/profile) --> Edit Profile
http://multiply.com/setup/profile


The Welcome box is the only thing that's always public, but you can hide it if you want. Just click on Customize My Site on your main page and then on the Hide link found in your Welcome Message box. If click on Edit, you can choose if the link to your Profile page is visible or not if you keep the Welcome box in your page. You can also use the Edit link in your Contacts and Groups boxes to change their privacy settings (choose who can see them).


As a side note, blocked users will appear in your Viewing History, but they won't be able to see any of your posts nor leave comments. But be aware that if they log out from Multiply, they will see your public posts (the ones for Everyone), but not comment.



If you have any questions about this or other topics, please title accordingly and post >>> HERE

THANKS ! Your assistance is greatly appreciated! :)

You may be wondering to yourself, “How can I get a little privacy around here?” You’ve heard that Multiply offers privacy, but you’re not sure how to make certain you’re posts are really private. This article will explain how to adjust your privacy settings as well as some things you might want to consider when setting them.

Just tell me what to do
------------------------------

When making a post on your home page, (or when adding pictures or posting a recipe or writing a review...) you'll always be given an option that asks:

(or it will at least look pretty similar to this)

Everyone: Choosing "everyone" means that not only can all of your contacts see your post, and not only can their contacts see it, but everyone in the world who has access to the internet will be able to view your page (should they happen to stumble across it somehow). Choosing everyone doesn't mean that your web page will be advertised in any way, drawing the world's attention. It just means that it's accessible to all.

This also means that search engines (such as google) will have access to your post and will be able to add it to their search results. So if you post an article about how to grind your own flour and you set it to be viewable by "everyone", then someone who does a search on google for "grinding flour" may very well come across your page. This might be exactly what you are looking for. But if you want to write about something a little more personal, like how your ailing father is doing, you may well want to change the privacy settings a little.

Let me just add, before I move on, that if you want a page to be viewable by friends who are not on Multiply (because you want them to see pics of your new puppy or what have you) then you'll have to set that page to be viewable by "everyone" or you'll have to set your post to private, but send a direct message to your non-Multiplying friends' email addresses through Multiply.

Your Network: Choosing "your network" provides some additional options that pop up once you click the "your network" button.