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.

[Ntfu2]

Originally Posted by Masiello

I love this Hack, but I need to allow without exception all the web bots (spiders) to access all my forum thread and post at anytime, what I need exactly to do for that, sorry but about that I'm so confused.
Thanks

This already lets bots and the such in like they were before

[aky]

one of the register links that popup when the post gets blocked just goes to the index.php page, can this be fixed to go to the register pagE?

[JimmyN]

Installed and got this working great, i set the register block page to 0 and it stops guest viewing any threads at all, and still allows search engine bots, this is very handy

Good work

[libertylounge]

Can you make it check spiders based off the vbulletin_spiders.xml?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Masiello

I love this Hack, but I need to allow without exception all the web bots (spiders) to access all my forum thread and post at anytime, what I need exactly to do for that, sorry but about that I'm so confused.
Thanks

Unless a bot is using cookies (which is not something I've seen) they will not be affected by this plugin. I'm not aware of bots posting so you're on your own there.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by libertylounge

Can you make it check spiders based off the vbulletin_spiders.xml?

Since bots are still allowed in I did not see a reason to go through that level of authentication. In the future I'll consider adding it.

[rknight111]

This is as good as the Welcome header.

I found in the Vbulletin msg after looking at 10 posts, when you click on "sign up" it directs you back to the main page rather than the register.php like the colored text "create your account now". I went in to mine and added the "/register.php" after the {2]. It works fine unless that is made to go to main page??

Thanks for the add-on, this will increase users, the welcome header helped alot..

RON

[Bad Bunny]

Originally Posted by rknight111

This is as good as the Welcome header.

I found in the Vbulletin msg after looking at 10 posts, when you click on "sign up" it directs you back to the main page rather than the register.php like the colored text "create your account now". I went in to mine and added the "/register.php" after the {2]. It works fine unless that is made to go to main page??

Thanks for the add-on, this will increase users, the welcome header helped alot..

RON

You can also edit the message. To anyone complaining about the links:
Edit them. It's the language system. I never noticed my links not working because I changed the messages and made my own links.

[Masiello]

Yes. edit the message, find: <a href="{2}">register</a> and replace with this: <a href="{2}/register.php">Put here your Own phrase</a>

[Masiello]

Thank you all for answer my question about bots, and thanks again to share this great mod.