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.

[hotwheels]

Well, this is what i have so far:

PHP Code:

// check if user is a bot
            $lvgbot = ($vbulletin->superglobal_size['_COOKIE'] == 0 AND preg_match("#(google|msnbot|zoints|aol|yahoo|slurp|FeedFetcher-Google|FeedBurner|WorldIndexer|Yahoo! Slurp|Majestics MJ12bot|Voyager|Technorati|Googlebot-Image|BlogPulse|blogsearch|Feedster|SBIder|ColdFusion
|FeedValidator|Google AdSense|Moreover|Norbert|Scooter|T-H-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-O-N-E|Teoma/Ask Jeeves|TurnitinBot|WorldIndexer|YahooFeedSeeker|vBSEO|Yahoo! Slurp Spider|Google Spider|FeedFetcher-Google Spiders|FeedBurner Spiders|BDFetch|SBIder.|Blogslive|Exabot|Feedfetcher-Google|GSiteCrawler|Google-Sitemaps|Gigabot|Java|MSTPC|MetaTagRobot|Moozilla|Mozilla|Python-urllib|Shim-Crawler|Site-Scan|Snapbot|Genome Machine|Windows-Media-Player|Yahoo-MMCrawler|findlinks|ichiro|libwww-perl|mozilla Java|sproose|up.b)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])); 


It seems once you install this, that it write's to phpmyadmin, so you have to continue forward with it....Uninstalling it didn't change the bot's being denied access......

I also installed the Member Bots 1.0 per the instruction's......

I will let ya'll know how this works out....

[XanTrax]

Couldnt a user/guest just delete their cookie and start it all over again? Considering firefox has a quick thing to delete cookies.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by hotwheels

Well, this is what i have so far:

PHP Code:

// check if user is a bot
            $lvgbot = ($vbulletin->superglobal_size['_COOKIE'] == 0 AND preg_match("#(google|msnbot|zoints|aol|yahoo|slurp|FeedFetcher-Google|FeedBurner|WorldIndexer|Yahoo! Slurp|Majestics MJ12bot|Voyager|Technorati|Googlebot-Image|BlogPulse|blogsearch|Feedster|SBIder|ColdFusion
|FeedValidator|Google AdSense|Moreover|Norbert|Scooter|T-H-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-O-N-E|Teoma/Ask Jeeves|TurnitinBot|WorldIndexer|YahooFeedSeeker|vBSEO|Yahoo! Slurp Spider|Google Spider|FeedFetcher-Google Spiders|FeedBurner Spiders|BDFetch|SBIder.|Blogslive|Exabot|Feedfetcher-Google|GSiteCrawler|Google-Sitemaps|Gigabot|Java|MSTPC|MetaTagRobot|Moozilla|Mozilla|Python-urllib|Shim-Crawler|Site-Scan|Snapbot|Genome Machine|Windows-Media-Player|Yahoo-MMCrawler|findlinks|ichiro|libwww-perl|mozilla Java|sproose|up.b)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])); 


It seems once you install this, that it write's to phpmyadmin, so you have to continue forward with it....Uninstalling it didn't change the bot's being denied access......

I also installed the Member Bots 1.0 per the instruction's......

I will let ya'll know how this works out....

This plugin does not modify any data in your database so when you remove it, it is removed. If the bots were denied access when you removed this, there's another reason... and this plugin isn't it.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by XanTrax

Couldnt a user/guest just delete their cookie and start it all over again? Considering firefox has a quick thing to delete cookies.

Yes. The goal here isn't to make it impossible to view threads, it's to make it harder and thus encourage registration. If you're looking to shut guests out, stick to the registration system.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by hotwheels

Ted, quick question on bot's?

If you want certian bot's to come to your site, say Yahoo! Slurp Spider or FeedFetcher-Google Spiders.........where do you add these? I see [php]// check if user is a bot

Just change the line google|msnbot|zoints|aol|yahoo|slurp to include any other bots you like with a pipe (|) between each name.

[JimmyN]

so this hack still allows all search engine bots to view?

But limits normal guests?

thanks

[Ntfu2]

How about adding a timer to where the cookie expires after x amount of hours


And then in the phrase maybe something like

"Thank you for viewing our content, you've viewed all the content allowed by guests, you can view more unrestricted content in X amount of hours blah blah...:"

[scottreeve]

Good hack.

I've installed, and only problem is with the 'custom message' edit.

(To edit the phrase for this message error, click here (enter your custom text in the translation box).)

It comes up with a SQL database error...

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Scott

[Ntfu2]

Originally Posted by scottreeve

Good hack.

I've installed, and only problem is with the 'custom message' edit.
It comes up with a SQL database error...

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Scott

Try to reimport the product XML and overwrite the old one.

[JimmyN]

Originally Posted by Ntfu2

How about adding a timer to where the cookie expires after x amount of hours


And then in the phrase maybe something like

"Thank you for viewing our content, you've viewed all the content allowed by guests, you can view more unrestricted content in X amount of hours blah blah...:"

i think this would be a great idea, but just have it that the guest can return to the board after 24hours say and then view a thead again, and if they click another thread then they get the msg.
But just have the existing msgs, not the X hours left, becuse then they might just not bother registering or they may come back to view latter without thinking to reg.

Maybe this can all be set in the admincp for this. So it can be cusomised to suite your own forum.

Just some ideas though,

So far its a great hack though, thanks heaps working great on my board