Limiting Guest Views

[Shawn Gossman]

I read a lot of articles online.

Sometimes the websites have made it to where I can only read a certain number of articles before it gets cut off by either a pay-gate or a requirement to create a free account to continue to read the content.

The smart part about it is the site allows enough content to be indexed by search engines, so it doesn't necessarily impact SEO in a negative way.

But would a concept like that work on a forum?

Require guests to join (or login) to be able to read an entire post or even access specific boards?

Does anyone practice this? Why or why not?

 

[Cory]

Guests can view the entirety of my board except the Codes forum and its subforums and the Skins forum and its subforums. This is the primary reason my member count increases so quickly. I've already received 30+ registrations this month and last month I received 50+. However, I don't do it just to have a high member count, but to have something that benefits registered members. Also, you have the user's personal information in case they ever decide to commit copyright infringement on the resources.

 

[Bawse]

That's an interesting approach. I'd consider it if I knew it wouldn't affect bots from search engines crawling my pages. I need my site to get indexed as fast as possible, for as many pages we got, so we can get maximum traffic from search engines.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

You might A/B test it a little bit.

If you can find a solution to only use the gate on certain boards and choose a few and watch the results using analytics or something like SEMRush.

I think most indexing stops at a certain number of characters but I could be wrong - the algorithm always changes!

 

[AWS]

There is a reason TAZ is dead. No new users joined and the old guys got tired of Sandmans ridiculous rules.

He had something installed that only allowed people to view 3 or threads. No one joined. Now you see the result. When the new owners took over they removed the addon. Too late. Damage done.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

There is a reason TAZ is dead. No new users joined and the old guys got tired of Sandmans ridiculous rules.

He had something installed that only allowed people to view 3 or threads. No one joined. Now you see the result. When the new owners took over they removed the addon. Too late. Damage done.

I think it’s mostly longer term members returning to or remaining at established forums from back in the day. But newer members are unlikely to remain active for long, not least if there’re not many members online. What a domino effect!

 

[Shawn Gossman]

There is a reason TAZ is dead. No new users joined and the old guys got tired of Sandmans ridiculous rules.

I like Howard but I will agree on his rules, he was too competitive and that IMO was one of the biggest killers of TAZ.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

There is a reason TAZ is dead. No new users joined and the old guys got tired of Sandmans ridiculous rules.

He had something installed that only allowed people to view 3 or threads. No one joined. Now you see the result. When the new owners took over they removed the addon. Too late. Damage done.

Was that limit like to encourage users to join or something?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Was that limit like to encourage users to join or something?

Most likely.

He would also sit in the who's online area too. Always thought it was a way for him to say "I'm watching you" lol