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.

[iran.gs]

Installed how ever why after the messege comes when u press register, this link comes
http://www.XXX/forum/Array['bburl']/register.php

[Ted S]

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

What vb version are you running? The phrases can always be manually edited via your phrase manager...

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Bad Bunny

So, I have tested this a bit, and it seems really useful. What exactly is the problem from the spider perspective? Is it blocking them or is it not? Also, wouldn't using only the message bypass any problems with the cookies anyway?

Spiders don't accept cookies so it can't block them on that basis (which is how the plugin checks). There is also an exclude list in the script to insure bots go right through.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Distance

Bots dont work then.... great shame

*uninstalls*

There is no impact to standard bots with this plugin (unless the bot is using cookies and not in the exclude list).

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by iran.gs

Installed how ever why after the messege comes when u press register, this link comes
http://www.XXX/forum/Array['bburl']/register.php

Odd, I will be taking a look at this issue later today.

Can you tell me when exactly this issue appears?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by hotwheels

It let's the bot's on your site........After 12am when my site stat's reset, here is what i show currently for my bot's: Yahoo! Slurp(11) , WorldIndexer , Google and Yahoo! Slurp Spiders (283), Majestics MJ12bot Spiders (1), Technorati Spiders (1), WiseNut Spiders (1), MSNBot Spiders (1), WorldIndexer Spiders (2), FeedBurner Spiders (2), Voyager Spiders (1), Google Spiders (1), FeedFetcher-Google Spiders (1)........

Thank you for the information hotwheels!

As stated in the main thread; this plugin works using cookies which the vast majority of bots don't use or don't store therefore few bots will ever be blocked. To be sure, the script also explicitly looks for major bots and lets them through, just as if they were a user who had not yet met the threshold to be denied. From a spider?s perspective, they see what a guest would see on their first visits so the content is no different than what someone else has access to.

[Nephalim]

Originally Posted by iran.gs

Installed how ever why after the messege comes when u press register, this link comes
http://www.XXX/forum/Array['bburl']/register.php

Same here! cool looking hack but new visitors get sent to an error page;
http://www.XXX/forum/Array['bburl']/register.php[/QUOTE]
this shows after the allowed pages set for the visitor to look at.

[InTeNsE-HuMoR]

Originally Posted by InTeNsE-HuMoR

This hack is great but it looks like everyone overlooked this simple mistake:

On the "Register block page" the create a new account links are invalid and thus a guest is unable to sign up for an account through that page. Other than that, great hack.

^^^^ It's on the register page when you have viewed the maximum amount of threads allowed and are then promted to sign up or login to continue viewing the forum. The sign-up links are invalid within that message.

[project-Buckfas]

Looks interesting. I'll try it after the above bug is fixed.....

[puertoblack2003]

yea i hav ethat same error when you click to sign up

http://www.puertotech.com/Array['bburl']/register.php

also i notice that when i did that test run on it it didn't bring that notice up i had to rebuild style and now is working.