MAKING YOUR FORUM INVISIBLE TO GUESTS IS DUMB!

[admin (no pm's please)]

I am making this a sticky for awhile.

Quite a lot of forums have gone down this route, in some cases forums where the admins have asked about promoting their forums on search engines!

Points to Remember:

1. If a GUEST cannot read your forums content, then neither can a search engine.
   
   
2. If by some fluke someone does find your forum, they are much less likely to sign up on the off chance that it is a good forum
   
   
3. Support will often be unable to help unless we can see issues, we certainly are not going to register on your forum just to be able of offer support.

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[Samuel]

i'm glad this topic was posted, i was told by some members that i should make the forum invisible, so i did, i didnt even imagine that no one would find it, pretty obvious really lol
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[1908sparky]

It is dumb !!

Its just a con just to make you join, what's the point in forum owners posting their forums on here if they make them invisible ! all you get to see is registration page !

well, it wouldn't get me to join, i can tell thee !

If their going to do that , then you might as well have a blank forum saying please join!!
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FourFourTwo <<<try me !!

No Retreat , No Surrender !!

[Outsider]

I concure that making your entire forum private is NOT the smartest rout to take but much like playing poker you never want to show your full hand before the game is over.
I have enough content set as viewable by all and a portion set to private hidden that I don't think unregistered guests need access to.
When I first started out I wanted to be the most user friendly forum on the net and let guests post anywhere they felt like it.
Problem is most guest posters are only Spam Bots or some micheivious knucklehead trying to get cheap thrills by posting content you don't want on your forum in the first place such as links to porn and other unfriendly content.
You can set your forum up to where it can be read by all witout allowing guest users to post.
JMHO not worth much I guess.
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ProudPatriotGuard Rider

[admin (no pm's please)]

The problem remains, it may be tempting to hide some good stuff to give people and incentive to join, but you always have to ask if the stuff being hidden means they don't see enough visible incentive to stay and find out.

Not all forums are the same, so it is always the admins call.

We make the point in ALL CAPS as we have plenty of admins who quite clearly have made the wrong call through inexperience.
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[jacquieh]

We are mostly visible to everyone on http://craftythreadsnyarns.myfreeforum.org but there are a few topics that are only visible to certain members. We run swaps through swap-bot.com and we only want members to join in, so the topics where the passwords are revealed are members only. We also have an Off Topic thread where some quite personal problems are discussed that we don't want all and sundry to see - also members only. Finally we have a Staffroom forum that only mods and admin can see to discuss board policy - post counts do not increment on this one either.

It seems to be working well so far!
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Jacquie

http://craftythreadsnyarns.myfreeforum.org
http://bloggersparadise.myfreeforurm.org
http://jacquie.typepad.com

[The Alchemist]

Our forum, http://thestoragesystem.myfreeforum.org is completely open to all, but posting is restricted among guests. This was due to a certain guest abuse this recent weeks.

Nothing seems to be developing though, same results with invisible forums. No new members.
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Why So Serious?

[admin (no pm's please)]

But what work have you done to get the link out "there". Can anyone find you with any google search they might actually do?
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[Roy]

I only ever have a staff room and a forum for locked topics hidden from members.
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http://flightsimforum.myfanforum.org/index.php

[The Alchemist]

I know that the forum name seems to be really out of the search criteria, because who would search about Storage?

But I've submitted my site to various search engines.
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Why So Serious?

[Amelia]

I have a question, I have repeated trolls registering on my site and just start arguements for no reason, just like to do so. If I leave all my topics opened to guests they come in there and start trouble, always the same people. How can I stop them?

http://parentsandproviders.myfreeforum.org

[The Alchemist]

Ban their IP address?
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Why So Serious?

[CodyT07]

[The Alchemist]

He/She said its a guest poster, so how can you ban their email address or username?
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Why So Serious?

[CodyT07]