Final questions I hope, with regard to trying to secure the forums.
Users cannot directly register, I will manually add them.
All forums and categories have Guest access set as none.
Can Google still index the pages in any way? Hopefully not.
I want it to index my main site but can I enter a wildcard in the "noindex forum page URL's" option in Tools, Misc\SEO Tools?
Are there any other recommendations people can make for securing the forums?
Securing from what exactly ?
Securing from Google indexing pages that I don't want to be available publicly mainly and simply if there are any other security concerns/issues/best practice that people employ.
Security and "hiding" are two totally different things, not related at all. That is why i asked.
For security there are several good plugins that cover most areas, i would suggest The Shield plugin.
1. If you don't want to index user profiles disable it using according option in Dashboard > Forums > Settings > Features atb
2. Google will not index Private Forums and Private Topics.
3. If you need keep some forum or topic public but not allow google to index use "noindex" tool in Dashboard > Forums > Tools > Misc Tab. Just put the URL of topic you'd like to stop indexing.