Securing your chatbot means that it would not be accessible to the general public. You need to think about what content do you want to share in your chatbot and if you actually need to secure it. Below we cover a few options based on the amount of secure data you want the chatbot to answer.

• Prevent search engines from indexing your chatbot page – Set your chatbot page to ‘noindex’ to ensure it doesn’t appear in Google, Bing, or other search results.
  • How to do this: On the left menu bar, go to Pages > Hover over [Your Chatbot Page] > Click ‘Quick Edit’ > Set ‘Indexing’ to ‘noindex’.
  • This is a recommended first step, for both public or private (secure) chatbots.
• Determine the best communication channels for your chatbot – As your vacation rental business evolves, decide what information should be handled by the chatbot versus email, SMS, or other channels. This will adapt over time to improve efficiency and guest experience.

Secure your chatbot with a password – If your chatbot contains sensitive information, such as your property address or personal phone number, adding password protection is a good security measure. While an address alone isn’t highly sensitive, combining it with other personal details could pose a risk.

• Set the Chatbot page to ‘Password Protected’ – Set your chatbot page to password protected to secure the chatbot.
  • How to do this: On the left menu bar, go to Pages > Hover over [Your Chatbot Page] > Click ‘Quick Edit’ > Set the ‘Password’ and click ‘Save’.
  • Unless you have very sensitive data (best practice with AI Chatbots – Do not enter sensitive data such as door codes, key locations, or other personal info) use a simple password.
    • Examples: Florida, skiing, Thailand, vacation, island, etc.
  • Remember that your typical user wants to access the data quickly and any password prompt will foil any nefarious characters as soon as they see it.
  • You can set a ‘Task’ in our ‘Task Management’ service to share both the link and the Password before check-in day.

Enhance chatbot security with user registration – If your chatbot contains sensitive information, such as your property address or personal phone number, requiring users to register provides stronger security than a generic password. This allows you to control and vet who has access. The registration process is more involved, and we’ll cover it at a high level below. Prior experience with WordPress is helpful, and additional resources like Google can provide further guidance. If you need further help, please create a ticket or chat with us.

• Add a Register and Login page to your site and think of how/when you want the users to register.
• Add the Register and Login links to your site. Normally these go in the header or footer.
• Add the Chatbot to the Chatbot page with the shortcode
• Set the user role to ‘Contributor’
  • Your role on your site is ‘Editor‘, which is the highest permission available. Do not give other users(guests) this level of access. When a guests registers on your site, they will be given ‘Subscriber’ access which very basic. Keep in mind that anyone can register so in order to ‘vet’ their access you will need to perform a few steps:
  • First, set the page to ‘Private’ – How to do this: On the left menu bar, go to Pages > Hover over [Your Chatbot Page] > Click ‘Quick Edit’ > Click ‘Private’
  • Second – Set the visibility of the Chatbot to be above ‘Subscriber’. If you leave it at a subscriber, anyone who registers will have access. Ideally, someone would register and once you recognize their name you will change their permission to ‘Contributor’
    • How to do this: On the left menu bar, go to Pages > Hover over [Your Chatbot Page] > Click ‘Edit’
    • Click to the right and above the ‘[/] Shortcode’ to select the Shortcode block. Now look to the right toolbar.
    • Under Block > Advanced > Display Conditions – User Role > Hide for User Role – Subscriber’ This will allow anyone with access above Subscriber to see the chatbot, but not subscribers