I've had this hack installed for a couple of days now, and have seen huge gains in guest registrations already.

Keep up the good work Ted

Best,
Scott

I'm very tempted to use this, but what do you guys think? By limiting what guests can view and forcing them to register, do we piss them off and drive them away or does this really increase membership?

I look at some of the really big forums and they wouldn't touch a mod like this with a 10 foot pole. Seems most of the smaller forums are trying this to build a more active community and I'm not sure that's the right course of action. Thoughts?

I'm not doubting you, but besides your word do you have any concrete poof this type of mod actually increases registrations?

Well, think about it from your perspective. I have it set to show a notice after five views. If you have looked at five threads so far, you must be at least mildly interested in the forums.

I have my blocking set at 20. If you have viewed 20 threads at my site...well I think it's easy to say you are a big fan of the forums. I know that by the time I have read 20 threads somewhere I am signed up.

Just sending my appreciation.
There are valid for and against arguments above, each to their own if they like it or lump it.
So far, I am happy with my experience with this hack.

If you need proof, see my attachment. Prior to installing the hack my forum was averaging 3-4 registrations p/day. The last couple of days have averaged around 15.

I supose it also depends if your website offers good content which potential guests desire.

Note, I have set the block-message at 7 page views (excluding some of the sub-forums from the count).

Best,
Scott

Thanks, I appreciate the time you took to show those stats.

Quick question. I just downloaded the latest version (1.0.5) but in the install file it still says:
This article and its associated code was updated on October 7th, 2006
Version: 1.0.3

In the first post it says:
11/20/2006 - Minor update released to fix error with links in some messaging. Updates recommended.

Sorry for taking so long to reply was just busy!
I don understand what you mean by values in the exclude field :s But I have the following addons installed:

Geek Auto-Link 4.5.0

Hide Links From Guests 1.32

Limited Guest Viewing 1.0.5

Link Anonymizer 1.10

Prevent Spam 1.0

Shoutcast Status Forumhome 2.0 (not working at the moment)

vB Importance 1.0.0

Welcome Headers 4.1.3
Zoints SEO 2.2.2

Zoints Thread Tags 1.2.1

Ouch, i was about to install this. But, you mean to tell you you only installed only four bots into your program? So the thousands of other bots, including several major ones missing from your list, wont be able to index my forums?

So far Yahoo, google, msn etc are fine

Tested and working on my forums
They may be some smaller bots not allowed, but they will not be that important as they will only get you like 5 guests a month? as long as the big bots like google and yahoo are acsessing your site you are right.

Just goto "who's Online" and see whats going on and if there is any permission probelms from the bots.

Maybe if this hack is regually updated with a new list of bots than it will be ok.

scottreeve - your are very correct in that i to have got a heap more registrations per day also. Gone up 14 used to be 1-4 average. Really is getting my forum on the go again, thanks to this hack