I was thinking the same thing.
Paying obviously allows you to post. If you’re asking what paying gets you, you must not be posting, and if you’re not posting, you’re not contributing to the community, and if you’re not contributiing to community, why should the community care about your ability to search?
Actually, paying allows you to search and post. As an aside, you’re a dick!
But until jdavis clarified, it looked like everyone could search via Google, making pay-to-search redundant and useless.
:shrug: I don’t really see what’s so dickish about my post, but I guess I’ll take your word for it.
Well, there you are then. Thanks Jerry! Appreciate not only the fix, but the info on said fix!
Wow, I honestly thought that this would go nowhere.
Thanks for listening to us.
plynck
I also thought this would just get bigger and bigger, so much so that I changed my old cool name into this hideous thing. Oh well.
Ha, if you asked me what my screen name is right now, I have no idea, I just smashed hands on keyboard and made that my new name (after making sure there were no sex freaks on Google with this name).
While I don’t have a horse in this race (Google Rick= 86,900,000 hits.* If somebody wants to wade through that to find one of my posts, hey they have earned it. 
)
But I just stopped to say, thanks Jerry. To often today people refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes, or to even admit they made a mistake.
To get an honest and straightforward answer is refreshing.
Thanks, you showed a lot of class in your post.
*On preview, I did a Google on Rick +SDMB. 15,100 hits. None of the hits on the first ten pages were from Boards.straightdope.com. looks like when Jerry talks, Google listens. Either that or I was listed on page last of that search.
Awesome. Thanks jdavis!
Hey Rick looks like your Googlefu needs some work.
Jerry, thanks for the clarification, is there something that can be done now about the other sites that are indexing these boards?
You are a google gawd. What it picks up is very spotty, though.
Wow. Greatly appreciated. What a class act all around.
Faith in humanity … rising …
I hope that’s really doable under the AdSense agreement.
That’s exactly what I was referring to in the OP (hypothetically). It seemed a little strange that Google wouldn’t declare that right.
DOH!
:smack:
So how do i block the ads? I can’t believe I paid to post on this site and now I gotta look at ads. Can they be blocked? Or should i just stop coming here?
Thank you. This is what I wanted to hear.
It looks rather like a contract with AdSense means you don’t get a choice in how the Google spiders crawl and index the site.
Why would they comply with a request to not cache and index this site, when the Adsense Agreement specifically gives them that right?
Yes - Firefox and adblock are the way to go. I’m actively seeking out sites with ads just so I can block them at the company level, it’s so cool.
One day I’ll have nailed every last one of the bastards and my internet experience will be serene. (Well once the Firefox Forum Idiot Blocker moves out of beta). 
As of yesterday evening Google removed the information it’s search engine had about the SDMB. When I search for anything from http://boards.straightdope.com nothing is returned. We are basically “disappeared”. Once again my apologies for my mistake. I believe it has been rectified.
Jerry