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.

[legionofangels]

Definitely interested in using this accompanied with your other hack.

My question is, is it going to ask me to register if I'm viewing the forums while I'm not logged in?

Because sometimes I like to look around without logging in. Sorry if this has already been answered.

[theFAILURE]

Yes it will. Just clear your cookies and then view more pages

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by legionofangels

Definitely interested in using this accompanied with your other hack.

My question is, is it going to ask me to register if I'm viewing the forums while I'm not logged in?

Because sometimes I like to look around without logging in. Sorry if this has already been answered.

As that's the purpose of the hack, yes, that's exactly what it will do.

[Tact7626]

just isntalled this today as well. very nice. and works great. love it. ty for this great mod.

[PDM]

can show post for spider bot ??

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by PDM

can show post for spider bot ??

Please read the main post for an explination of how bots see the site.

[BadgerDog]

An associated question for use with this mod, if I may....

Right now, I have most of my forums set so guests can view the threads in the forum, but not the content of an individual post.

If I wanted to use this mod from time to time to drive more interest, but not ON all of the time, is there an easier way for me to turn ON and OFF guest reading posts permissions, then going into each indvidual forum and dealing with permissions for guests (and awaiting validation), to be able to read posts using this mod?

Thanks

Regards,
Badger

[Ted S]

You could certainly write a simple SQL query to do this for you.

[theFAILURE]

I do not this works for Archives though, either way still great

[Ted S]

It's not intended to work in the archive as it is not meant to be a system to truly block people from viewing content. The goal is to encourage registrations without being overly invasive.