******* - Limited Guest on Thread Viewing [Paid] [Deleted]

[borbole]

borbole submitted a new resource:

Limited Guest And Invalid Users Thread Viewing (version 1.0) - Limited Guest And Invalid Users Thread Viewing

As requested here:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/paid-limited-guest-viewing-motivate-guests-to-register.13959/

This mod will limit guest and users waiting email account confirmation viewing of threads.

After you install the mod, you can configure it at Options in your Acp->Guests And Invalid Users Thread View Limit.

You can enable and disable the mod for each group separately, set the maximum number of views separately for guests and and users waiting email account...

Read more about this resource...

 

[Archet]

Are bots excluded from this, and if not, how is this affecting SEO?

 

[raytrails]

Does this hurt the results at various search engines?

 

[borbole]

Are bots excluded from this, and if not, how is this affecting SEO?

No, bots will be treated the same as guests. Because if the search engines would be treated differently from guests would be against their terms of agreement.

Does this hurt the results at various search engines?

No, it will not hurt the results at various search engines.

 

[raytrails]

If bots are treated the same way as guests (limited number of views) I would presume it'll cannibalise the results at search engines. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

 

[borbole]

If bots are treated the same way as guests (limited number of views) I would presume it'll cannibalise the results at search engines. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Nothing will be cannibalised at search engines 's result. This mod has been bought by a lot of users and none has reported any problems related to search engines. Not to mention the fact that this kind of mod is used in almost all forum softwares and there has not been any report there either about having a negative impact on search engines.

 

[raytrails]

Thanks for the clarification, borbole going to buy a license for this add-on.

 

[Archet]

I'm not an expert on SEO, but if text are hidden from search engines, which primarily rate a page's importance based on the text content and keywords, then this will affect the search results / indexing.

meta keywords are less important now than they used to be, and Google doesn't pay much attention to it, and the fact that a most forum software has this kind of mod available, doesn't necessarily make it SEO friendly.

I can see the use of this add-on in certain forums / threads (like premium content), but if you deny guest access to all your pages, only the title will be indexed and the pages will be rated less important.

 

[raytrails]

I'm not an expert on SEO, but if text are hidden from search engines, which primarily rate a page's importance based on the text content and keywords, then this will affect the search results / indexing.

meta keywords are less important now than they used to be, and Google doesn't pay much attention to it, and the fact that a most forum software has this kind of mod available, doesn't necessarily make it SEO friendly.

I can see the use of this add-on in certain forums / threads (like premium content), but if you deny guest access to all your pages, only the title will be indexed and the pages will be rated less important.

Exactly my point! But since the author says it will NOT affect search results, I presume he knows what he's talking about (?)

Although he is somewhat contradicting himself when he says that guests will have a limited access and that bots will have the same access as guests. I'm confused, to say the least.

 

[Archet]

I understand that people using this kind of mod are saying they haven't noticed any drop in indexed pages, or cannibalized resuts, since the search engines will still index the page. But it won't end up as high on the search results as it could have done. For instance, with limited view you may have a page rank 3 site, but with full access it could have been 4 or 5. (difference between a page 1 result and page 2-3) When was the last time you searched for something and had to go past page 1 to find it?

Would be great if someone with greater knowledge of SEO could comment on this. I like the mod a lot, and will definitely purchase it if it doesn't hurt SEO.

 

[RickM]

This will have a massive impact on your search engine results. I dont claim to be a SEO expert but have done my fair share over the years. By blocking search engines from accessing content, the content effectively does not exist as far as the search engine is concerned. You may as well block them from your entire domain as this will kill your indexed content very quickly.

 

[borbole]

Exactly my point! But since the author says it will NOT affect search results, I presume he knows what he's talking about (?)

Although he is somewhat contradicting himself when he says that guests will have a limited access and that bots will have the same access as guests. I'm confused, to say the least.

I am not contradicting myself at all. If you read my post you would have seen that I said showing different content to bots than the guests is against Google & other search engines terms of service. (Would likely be seen as black hat). Therefore spiders CANNOT have a higher limit, be excluded from the limit.

If you got caught employing such black hat techniques you are likely to be sandboxed (permanently or temporarily banned from the search engines)

 

[mrGTB]

Black-hat SEO is when you allow search engine bots to view content, while blocking Guests (humans) from seeing it. That's what Google mainly frowns upon from what I've read and why both should be treated the same. Why the mod releaser said they do get treated the same, both visitors and bots.

I'd say if your going to head down this road, your better doing this how Mark.B has on his BCForums, that's set-up doing a similar thing. He lets bots and guests view the "first post" in a thread, but you need to login to view all other replies. At least that way search engines will still index all threads started.

Take a look here: http://www.bowlandcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?t=102089

 

[borbole]

I understand that people using this kind of mod are saying they haven't noticed any drop in indexed pages, or cannibalized resuts, since the search engines will still index the page. But it won't end up as high on the search results as it could have done. For instance, with limited view you may have a page rank 3 site, but with full access it could have been 4 or 5. (difference between a page 1 result and page 2-3) When was the last time you searched for something and had to go past page 1 to find it?

Would be great if someone with greater knowledge of SEO could comment on this. I like the mod a lot, and will definitely purchase it if it doesn't hurt SEO.

I am not a seo expert but from what I have read bots do not generally use cookies and my mod limits the page views based on cookies.

 

[giorgino]

Hi Borbole, I found a bug!
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/problems-with-whats-new-page.29624/#post-340565

 

[RickM]

I am not a seo expert but from what I have read bots do not generally use cookies and my mod limits the page views based on cookies.

Thats probably still considered a blackhat method.

At the end of the day, this is what is happening:

Guests can only view X posts. Search engines can view every post. That right there is grounds to get your site blacklisted from all major search engines. The method uses makes no difference as far as search engines are concerned.

 

[borbole]

Thats probably still considered a blackhat method.

At the end of the day, this is what is happening:

Guests can only view X posts. Search engines can view every post. That right there is grounds to get your site blacklisted from all major search engines. The method uses makes no difference as far as search engines are concerned.

So now you are a seo expert, is that it? At the start, middle and end of the day that is not considered blackhat method at all. The bots are treated the same as guests and that is precisely according to the Search Engines Toss.

Hi Borbole, I found a bug!
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/problems-with-whats-new-page.29624/#post-340565

I had a look at your forum just now and I could not reproduce it. The what is new page displayed fine to me and I saw that you had my mod installed.

 

[giorgino]

I had a look at your forum just now and I could not reproduce it. The what is new page displayed fine to me and I saw that you had my mod installed.

Hope this video can help you to troubleshoot

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[borbole]

Hope this video can help you to troubleshoot

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The video does not help me at all giorgino because I need to see the issue live for myself. And as I said above, I can not reproduce it. But you said that it happens for some users only and not for everyone. Maybe the issue lies at those users pc. Can you ask them for some more info like what browser do they use and what version?

But let us continue this conversion at the mod 's thread at my forum as I support all my mods there.

 

[RickM]

So now you are a seo expert, is that it? At the start, middle and end of the day that is not considered blackhat method at all. The bots are treated the same as guests and that is precisely according to the Search Engines Toss.

I'm not going to get into a debate with you. I was simply stating a fact that you cant really ignore. I should also point out that a mod that uses the same method (Cookies) was released for vB a few years ago. A bunch of sites using it were blacklisted, hence why this needs to be discussed. I'm not nocking your mod or you, I'm simply stating a fact, and I think it would be wise to warn people, otherwise they will hold you responsible if their site suddenly vanishes from Google.

I'm done with this thread. I was providing simple information and you've just turned it into a debate by throwing a tantrum because you didn't to hear the facts.