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.
Ouch, i was about to install this. But, you mean to tell you you only installed only four bots into your program? So the thousands of other bots, including several major ones missing from your list, wont be able to index my forums?
No. As stated in several threads and the original post, the plugin uses cookies. Bots don't use cookies. Thus bots are fine. However, to be extra sure I have added a routine to check for and skip processing for several major bots which represent 90%+ of searching. Other bots should be fine too.
Quick question. I just downloaded the latest version (1.0.5) but in the install file it still says: This article and its associated code was updated on October 7th, 2006 Version: 1.0.3
In the first post it says:
11/20/2006 - Minor update released to fix error with links in some messaging. Updates recommended.
Don't worry about that. The file is updated, I just didn't update part of the install guide.
Limited Guest Viewing -- Improve community registration rates Details »»
About Developer
Uses Plugins 
No support by the author.
11-25-2006, 02:09 AM
