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.

[FleaBag]

I have a fear if Google realised your page was using this it could really damage your ranking.

[rex_b]

Wow Ted. Great hack!

[Josh1]

Excellent. .

[redlabour]

Attention :

s. Screenshot - this is happening after Installation of this Hack.

Most Yahoo IP´s are blocked.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by FleaBag

I have a fear if Google realised your page was using this it could really damage your ranking.

That's certainly possible. However, many sites (i.e. webmaser world, new york times, barons, wsj, etc...) do just this... and do it with Google's knowledge. In fact, Google has a product that logs in to protected sites and from what I've been told, will be rolling this out to more sites in the future.

Keep in mind that you are not showing different content to a user any more than Amazon shows people who have logged in different content than those that have not. Most dynamic sites these days show different content to different groups -- the welcome message on your forumhome template, showing birthdays or announcements to one group, or ads to another. In this case, all you are doing is limiting the number of times a guest may view pages. I can't tell you what this will or won't do for the SERPs, I can tell you why it makes sense and what others are doing that's similar.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by redlabour

Attention :

s. Screenshot - this is happening after Installation of this Hack.

Most Yahoo IP?s are blocked.

It looks like Yahoo's agent was a little different than what my filter had. Try updating the plugin file and let me know if you see any issues.

[redlabour]

Originally Posted by Ted S

That's certainly possible. However, many major news (i.e. new york times, barons, wsj, etc...) sites do just this... and do it with Google's knowledge. In fact, Google has a product that logs in to protected sites and from what I've been told, will be rolling this out to more sites in the future.

Keep in mind that you are not showing different content to a user any more than Amazon shows people who have logged in different content than those that have not. Most dynamic sites these days show different content to different groups -- the welcome message on your forumhome template, showing birthdays or announcements to one group, or ads to another. In this case, all you are doing is limiting the number of times a guest may view pages. I can't tell you what this will or won't do for the SERPs, I can tell you why it makes sense and what others are doing that's similar.

Sorry, Ted after your other Answer about Google i have to uninstall this. If Google uses Login Agents it will only do it at Major Sites and that are not the most Sites.

Nice Idea - but Crawling is more important for me than force Guest to register.

[hotwheels]

awesome mod ted s.......works perfectly

[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 Code:

// check if user is a bot
            $lvgbot = ($vbulletin->superglobal_size['_COOKIE'] == 0 AND preg_match("#(google|msnbot|zoints|aol|yahoo|slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])); 


Would it be something like

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|Yahoo! Slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']));[/ 


[hotwheels]

K, i have to disable this for now.......redlabour is right, it is kickin off the bot's for those that need to have them on.

I will keep checking back on this post tho, this is a great idea.