[hceline]

EDIT: Nevermind, it seems google has removed support for the "links:" keyword. So the "links:eab.abime.net" number says nothing. But I will contend that there must be lots of external links directly to EAB threads all over the net. And those not showing up would indicate that the problem is elsewhere.

Well if you use the Google search term "links:eab.abime.net" you get at this moment: About 246,000 results

While "site:eab.abime.net" gives now: About 73 results
(after scrolling down and clicking "repeat the search with the omitted results included.")

So if robots.txt does not suppress external links, those two numbers should prove that something else is at play.