What advantage/disadvantage is there to allow/deny attachments to guests?

[sbj]

So my forum is heavily based on attachments, specially PDF (65000+). I offer expertise level stuff on my niche.

I have the attitude to offer everything for free, as I also run it as a non-commercial place. But I think there is 2 things about it.

Bots can access it too and that sometimes slows the downloads I think. Sometimes when I try to open a 3-4 mb big PDF file, it takes minutes to open.

Also this way I think nobody bothers to register to the site.

On the other side if I disallow it to guests, maybe they will not come back again to the site because it will annoy them?

What do you think?

PS: Ofcourse images are still being displayed to everyone including guests. That I find highly annoying if those are disallowed.

 

[Fullmoon]

I allowed unregistered members to view attachments as they're mostly images. Without allowing them to view attachments they see a small preview and it's just irritating.

On the other hand maybe not allowing them encourages people to register...

 

[sbj]

I allowed unregistered members to view attachments as they're mostly images. Without allowing them to view attachments they see a small preview and it's just irritating.

On the other hand maybe not allowing them encourages people to register...

Well I was not talking about images. I think images should always be allowed for unregistered users. It is annoying as hell if images can't be seen, nobody likes that. So I won't disallow that.

But I will disallow it for PDF attachments.

Actually I did it already. I gained in the last 3 days more registrations than I gained in a whole year .
So unregistered people can still see images, but they cannot download PDF files (see them) without registering.

 

[beerForo]

So you answered your own question.

 

[sbj]

So you answered your own question.

Yeah, because nobody bothered to answer. So I went ahead and tested it by myself instead of waiting for answers and got my answer that way.

 

[Fullmoon]

Well I was not talking about images. I think images should always be allowed for unregistered users. It is annoying as hell if images can't be seen, nobody likes that. So I won't disallow that.

But I will disallow it for PDF attachments.

Actually I did it already. I gained in the last 3 days more registrations than I gained in a whole year .
So unregistered people can still see images, but they cannot download PDF files (see them) without registering.

Ah sorry didn't know you were talking about PDF's specifically.

I agree with you, keep everything other than plain images locked up until they register

If there's anyone else with a good reason for not doing that i'd be all ears. Just starting my board.

 

[JoyFreak]

I allow images on mine. Good to have it that way.

 

[frm]

With 65000 PDFs, if there's text, you're also going to eventually lose out on SEO.

Now I don't think Google can get to them PDF's and crawl them either.

I would experiment with some custom development where a user could "download" a PDF, but it only be the first 3 pages and the 4th page is a link back to the registration page and a reference to where they can find that specific PDF in full text. As if a user went that far, they will be back to get the rest of the document.

That way, Google can see the "main point" of the PDF and still somewhat rank you accordingly.

 

[Fullmoon]

With 65000 PDFs, if there's text, you're also going to eventually lose out on SEO.

Now I don't think Google can get to them PDF's and crawl them either.

I would experiment with some custom development where a user could "download" a PDF, but it only be the first 3 pages and the 4th page is a link back to the registration page and a reference to where they can find that specific PDF in full text. As if a user went that far, they will be back to get the rest of the document.

That way, Google can see the "main point" of the PDF and still somewhat rank you accordingly.

Good idea. That would be neat.

 

[sbj]

With 65000 PDFs, if there's text, you're also going to eventually lose out on SEO.

Now I don't think Google can get to them PDF's and crawl them either.

I would experiment with some custom development where a user could "download" a PDF, but it only be the first 3 pages and the 4th page is a link back to the registration page and a reference to where they can find that specific PDF in full text. As if a user went that far, they will be back to get the rest of the document.

That way, Google can see the "main point" of the PDF and still somewhat rank you accordingly.

Yeah, SEO reasons was one thing which I was considering. Luckily me, my PDFs have exactly the same name as the thread titles they belong to. So, as long as the threads are crawled, the PDFs will be found. And second to that, the PDFs are music sheet, so no text at all or text which Google bots can't decipher definitely.

But good point, thanks,

And I don't like your idea tbh, because I don't like baiting. I am offering everything for free anyway and also all is non-commercial. So, if people can't be bothered to register on the site, their loss. For commercial sites I think your idea is good however.