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.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by vitrag24

neway i'll try from now on not to use shortcodes.
thanks for the add-on.

Thanks ... :up:

Could have been worse, as you could have been using Latin like the old days for prescriptions ...

Regards,
Badger

[vitrag24]

i'm from india so not using latin words except conventional terms..

[RaceJunkie]

This is a great mod, I have had over 100 new users sign up this week alone..

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by RaceJunkie

This is a great mod, I have had over 100 new users sign up this week alone..

That's great! How have you found activity/ posting rates to be with this installed?

[FuzionIT]

Installed :-) Great mod thanks but I'm having problems changing the registration message. I'm using 3.5.4. I get an error message when I try to change using the LGV system so I've changed it in phrases. The message still hasn't changed though. Any ideas?
www.equineonline.net/horseforum

BTW if you look at the viewing system, the message has changed next to where it says Register Take-Over Message Count and Register Block Page Count. It's not actually showing on the forum though.

[Ted S]

This hack is not supported in the 3.5.x version.

[FuzionIT]

Originally Posted by Ted S

This hack is not supported in the 3.5.x version.

Ok. A previous comment was 'The plugin will work in 3.5+'. Does not supported mean it won't work or does it mean no help is provided? I will be keeping the mod as everything appears to work apart from being able to change the registration message. If anyone can point me in the right direction to do that I would be grateful.

[Ted S]

It should work fine (and is running on several 3.5 sites) but as I don't run or use 3.5, I can't offer support for that version.

That said, if you change the right phrase it should appear on your site. Be sure to check your translations and any other languages you may have installed.

[Lifesupporters]

This is a truly great mod Ted, nice work!

I just finished installing it at Lifesupporters.com and the one thing that I truly like about this mod so far is I no longer have the need for custom usergroup permissions for unregistered and users awaiting e-mail in some of my forum categories.

Previously, there were forums that I just didn't want guests to have deep access to simply because they are either off topic given the sites main focus or are complimentary in nature but still do not fully mesh with the site purpose. Now that guests have limited browsing capability, I no longer have to privatize or hide forums and configure the usergroups specially.

I'm keeping an eye on who's online and so far the only user that was blocked was me in Opera as a non-logged in member. Yahoo Slurp, Adsense and Google are all online currently and not one of them is experiencing issues (not that I expected any as I've already read and understood the various responses to spiders and cookie usage).

The only comment I would make is the install file makes reference to this:

This plugin does a basic check to identify bots (Google, Yahoo and MSN) and will allow them unrestricted access; however, you may want to consider installing the Bots as Members plugin if you are concerned about other bots. This plugin does not apply to the vBulletin archive and will not restrict views to that portion of your site.

...I read over that entire topic and as great as it sounds, I'd never install it personally given the negative nature of that entire thread. It simply leaves too big of a question mark as to whether or not using it may or may not be considered cloaking which is why I shied away from it all together.

Lastly, this is another minor issue but I did notice earlier in this thread, one user commented on your update line (the first phrase on your install.html file):

This article and its associated code was updated on October 7th, 2006

IMHO, it may not be a bad idea to either update this line or simply re-direct it to this forum topic so all users can see the changelog in the very first post. I only make mention of it as it can cause some confusion, at least for tards like me.

BTW, if you do happen to visit my site, please don't slag me for it's appearance so far. This site is over 3 years old but only 3 months old on Joomla/vB so it's still very much in re-build mode.

Thanks again for this great mod!

[Lifesupporters]

...I also thought I'd add for a mod that is apparently Not Supported, you seem to do a fine job supporting it here on the forums!