Guest view limit

I am thinking about installing a guest view limit!
What do you guys think?
Is it good or bad?

Also can anyone tell me how can I implement this in xenforo?

 

Oh, thanks. I thought it will get us some members via google and all.
But you seem to be experienced than me, so, not implementing it!

 

if you block off your site like that google cannot index your site at all.

 

Bad.Bad.Bad.Bad.Bad. Did I mention it was bad? There is really no rational reason to implement that unless you are talking about complex nuclear secrets that you don't want the general public to access. It just makes people angry and probably causes them to go to another site. Let them browse and read. If they like it they'll sign up. If they don't sign up, so what? Slight server load is all.

 

I am not implementing it!
Good that I asked it here before implementing!

 

I never block guests from viewing my content on my community. Why? You'll be blocking out all the search engine bots -which will really suck because as time goes on, you'll notice that your traffic from the engines go up, so I'd recommend keeping your boards opened and not have limits for guests. In fact, you could throw up more ads for guests or something.

 

Not good, some don't want to register, they just want to read. For example, I read from a community from 2006 to 2008 which I registered.
So, If there was a guest view limit, I and others doing the same would be pissed off and that would result to the community losing some viewers.

 

Depends what kind of community we are running i guess ! I left my community open for almost 8months .I run community about fishing . To many lurkers who hang out all day in reports sections / Spots finding sections but never bother to register at all . They fish on same place trash them like crazy leaving garbage all around the place . So i prefer to keep those section limited to registered folks .

 

I agree with @AWS
If a forum limits guest I'll generally use the cache to get my answer then remember to NOT look at that site again for my answers.

 

Ya, the only thing that "guests viewing limited" is good for is increasing your number of users, but the amount of users returning just to see content is ridiculous. I'd rather have 50 guests on than 5o members online that don't even reply to threads.

 

I guess I should consider letting guests view images

But I need an insensitive for them to register!

 

It's a bit of a catch22, you want to give google as much to grab onto, but you want to give your users a reason to sign up.

I personally let guest see everything.

 

Does google grab images? Because usually we have a label on the images that are visible for all.

I'll keep the status quo for a few weeks and then switch and see which works better for me.

 

Hotmess, keeping guests away from viewing images guarantees you nothing. They register mainly to just view the images and probably not post if your contents are not really interesting and you end up losing two things.

The key to getting people to participate is by providing good and interesting discussion topics, also make your forum look more active.
If you can do the above, you don't need to force them to join before they join and start making posts.
But, all in all just have good contents and appear active, cause have seen site opened to guests, and people still register exponentially and otherwise.
Sites closed in all aspects to guests and anytime I go on the site there are always more than 13,000 members online and otherwise.

 

Well one of the reasons why I registered here was to get advice/suggestions like these as a newbie admin. I'll take off the guest mod as soon as I get a minute.

Thanks guys!

Edited to add, my site is now an open book :/

 

Google Images is a great source for traffic.
I get a ton of guest on my other site all from Google Image search or bing images. Only a small % of them will click through to the site and register but you will get a few here and there.

I agree with @BJTheCoder and active site is a happy site

I hope you'll report back and let us know if you've noticed an improvement, we're all here to help

 

Ya, Google does grab images. If its images you're hosting yourself, then make sure to include alt="keywordhere" in the html for the image. And also, if you're trying to rank for certain keywords on Google via images - make sure the file name of your image includes your keyword.

Wonderful - be sure to keep us updated on your forum's traffic/activity and such. You're using Google Analytics correct?

 

@cpvr yes, I am using Google Analytic. I haven't quite grasped the Keyword thing yet, I'll have to work on that if I am going to use it in links and such lol. It is taking time but I am learning

I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for your impute!

 

That's a bad strategy unless you are sharing something that is truly valuable. And remember people can always see the cached copy of the threads via Google even after you block them so blocking is not an ideal solution. A lot of people like to browse forums without becoming a member so limiting the views will only turn off such people and your traffic will be drastically reduced.