Does anyone here consistenly block a forum reading the tread details to guest. This way they have to join in order to read the thread? I have been experirmenting a bit and i do it for a day or so at a time in just one forum and the memberships sky rocket.... But i know you have to be careful for google cloaking and such.... any input?
I do that on some of my forums, although mainly just to stop non members reading due to the content, and to keep the content out of search engines. The forum rules, forum info and type things guests can read tho. The DOWN side is that the post count of members (in your member list) can make it look like most do not use your forum thus making it look mainly unused, so i clear out the non posters every couple of months. It's kind of pointless showing 10,000 members if only 500 ever post anything and can put people off posting.
well im thinking that 10- 25% of those who join from this method may actually do a post that has been a long time coming.
I'm one of those people who like to browse the forums for a while before registering. I like to get a feel of what the community is like. If I come across a forum that is locked to guests, I generally leave right away. In my opinion, although you may get more people registering, those members may not become loyal or good contributors to the community. In contrast, forums that are not locked to guests may tend to have a more active community due to the fact that the members actually WANT to contribute. My 2 cents. -James
I like keeping most of the forum open, but having one or two areas only for members (like the marketplace on my writing forum, where people have to be a member to see the writers markets we put time into digging up).
I get a lot of my visits from google searches, so I don't think I could do this. I have considered the addons that show the first post and don't show comments though. I just don't know what it would do to my SE indexed pages.