Add-On Releases - Limited Guest Viewing -- Improve community registration rates

Note: This addon works with the 3.6.x series only. Click Here for the 3.7.0 version of this addon.

With vBulletin, forum guests are able to view endless amounts of content without being directly asked or forced to register no matter how many times they come back. The purpose of the Limited Guest Viewing System is to drive in registrations by limiting the number of threads guests are able to view without interruption.

This plugin offers two options which can be used to drive in more registrations. The first option allows you to show a reminder message or advertisement after a guest has viewed a certain number of threads. The second option puts up a roadblock stopping guests from viewing threads altogether after reaching a certain number of views. Both options work together to encourage and ultimately force anonymous visitors to either register or login but can also be used separately based on your individual needs.

Because this plugin uses cookies, few if any bots will be impacted when it comes to spidering your site.

Modifications/ Instructions:
Template edits: 1
Plugins: 1 (adds 1 template and several settings)

This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

Customizing the content / messages
To customize which messages appear or what they say, go to vBulletin options, select the ?Limited Guest Viewing System? group and configure the options as desired. Each phase can be modified by adding translation text.

Through the ACP you can enable or disable each option, specify the number of threads that can be viewed before the option is enabled and input any forums you wish to exclude from being blocked.

About spiders/bots
This plugin works by setting a cookie to track the number of visits from a particular user. As bots do not tend to accept cookies, they should not be blocked. To further insure there is no spider accessibility issues, there script identifies major bots (google, yahoo, msn, aol) and explicitly lets them through -- you can easily add to this list by editing the plugin code should you so desire, however, unless a bot starts taking cookies this should not be necessary.


Welcome headers compatibility
The Limited Guest Viewing is designed to work with the Welcome Headers system without any conflict. To insure that welcome header messages do not show up at the same time as the limited guest viewing message, please be sure you are running welcome headers version 4.1.3 or greater (released 11/19).

Updates
5/9/2008 - Released update to prevent installs on 3.7 boards.
2/18/2007 - Minor update to fix register link. Updates optional.
11/20/2006 - Minor update released to fix error with links in some messaging. Updates recommended.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Tom_S

Is it possible that this can work for both guest and registered members of a group? Our website is a paysite that once they pay they are upgraded into another group. Until then they are just a registered member but with no access to forums. We would like to do this so it works for both guests and the usergroup "registered users" to encourge them to upgrade their account to paid status.

Thanks in advance

This hack is not intended to do this but you could certainly make it do so. The question to ask yourself if is if you want to let members or guests ever access forums. It sounds like right now people get no access, limited guest viewing is intended to let them view a few threads, then stop them (and bug them until then). If you don't want people _ever_ viewing threads then you should not use this hack but can take advantage of the welcome headers system to show registered members a message about subscribing.

[Tom_S]

Registered paid members do indeed see threads and post and everything. The intent here was to allow both guests and initial registered members the ability to see a certain number of posts and then they will only see your register screen but modified.

I am using your mod on one of my other boards that is not a pay site and it works wonderful. I just would like to use it on my other board. Even if it only worked for registered users Group ID #2 then that would be okay. Anyway to implement that?

[Tom_S]

Ideas here Ted?

I really need this to work for at least just group ID 2.

I went through your code and I don't see how you are doing it and since vB is new to me I will wait until someone that knows can help and since you created this bad boy I am hoping that will be you.

Thanks

[Ted S]

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo,2)"> Message for Group 2</if>

[Tom_S]

Where does that go? I tried using something similar yesterday by changing the line:

if ($show['guest'] AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon'])

to:

if ($bbuserinfo['2'] AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon'])

but that didn't work.

I really appreciate your help on this

[Ted S]

$bbuserinfo['2'] doesn't do much of anything

Try

PHP Code:

$membergroups = fetch_membergroupids_array($vbulletin->userinfo);
if (in_array('2', $membergroups) AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon']) 


[Tom_S]

Those changes made it work for the initial test. I will do further testing later today. With that in mind do you realize the potential for this mod? You could basically set it up to control campains over any usergroup setup. Wow! Great job my friend. Great job indeed.

[milsirhc]

works great! Good to have abit of teaser for the guest.. let see how it goes!

[ArabSQuad]

Awesome ..

* installed

thanks alot

[sdebank]

Is it possible to allow guests to only see posts that are x amount of hours old. Thus guests wanting to see the latest news/posts will have to register/sign-in.