Require Guests to Register Before Seeing Posts? -- on SMF

I heard that you can get more people registering if you require them to register before viewing posts. First, is that a good strategy?

Second, is there any mod or anything that lets you do that on SMF? I don't think you can do it in permissions...

 

Personally I would not do that.
If I visit a forum and cant view some posts to see what is going on then I leave pretty quick. I dont beleive it increases registration rates and if it does whats the point in having thousands of rgistered members who just came in to have a look and never post?

 

you can set your SMForum so guests can see whats available but they cannot read. check the SMF support boards for more info.

 

There's a mod that does it. Check their mod site:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/

 

Well there is such mod where you can let them view as many posts as you want before giving them the cut off message saying they should register. This definitely increases registration rates as they get a chance to vie a decent amount of posts which lets them figure out if they want to continue.

 

Really, don't do this, it wont improve registrations. Would you join a forum if you couldn't see anything that was in their?

 

I would agree that if a user cant see any posts he will leave and most likely never come back (personal experience...)

BUT, if a user can see about different 5 threads/posts and THEN get a "Must Register" message, he would most likely register (personal experience). Since the user was interested enough to read 5 different threads, he is probably going to want to see the 6th...7th and so on...

Although I have tested it and it showed to improve registration rate to almost 200%, im still not sure if it is a good thing to have members that never post

Im not saying its a good thing, just giving the stats

 

Does someone know where to get this mod for a vBulletin forum ?

 

well with this idea, all i do, is
make my users see that stuff is there, but everytime they're trying to read, a thread, it would ask them to register... and also, maybe like get a mod,its usually called

hide links from guests

Code (markup):

what it does, is just requires a user to register to see a link, this is mostly used on warez related sites, this way it gets more traffic. and members.

 

Do not do this unless you want to push your visitors away and never have the chance to convert them into members of your forum...

 

Use forum permissions based on groups.