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Duke · 07-17-2007, 12:41 AM

I'd like your thoughts on opening up all our forums so registration is no longer required to view with the only exception being "The Inner Me" Forum. The only reason for asking is that we have a tremendous amount of content in the "Off Topic" Forum and none of it is indexable to Search Spiders from Google, MSN and Yahoo as they too cannot access hidden areas.

The only catch is that a guest can only view 5 posts maximum before they receive an error stating they have to be registered to view any more forum content. From what I understand, this does not apply to search spiders as they do not use cookies when accessing a site via web browser as the rest of us do.

What this means is, all currently hidden forums except "Inner Me" will be un-hidden and publicly viewable to everyone up to and including 5 mouse clicks. Any more site browsing will require the user to clear their cookies to gain another 5 clicks.

The benefit will be that the search engines (in theory) will now have access to these additional areas (except Inner Me), will index them and hopefully add to our traffic number which to this day continue to fall.

It's likely that we'll see less and less traffic around here until late this fall or maybe into the New Year given the software change. Much of what we had indexed took a few years to accomplish and all that work was lost in this site transformation.

Rest assured, we will eventually come out ahead, right now it's just a waiting game for Google, MSN and especially Yahoo, to get their sh1t together an re-index the entire site.

Thoughts?

07-17-2007, 12:41 AM	#1 (permalink)
Duke Founder Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: The back of my mind. Posts: 20,323	Opening up the forums I'd like your thoughts on opening up all our forums so registration is no longer required to view with the only exception being "The Inner Me" Forum. The only reason for asking is that we have a tremendous amount of content in the "Off Topic" Forum and none of it is indexable to Search Spiders from Google, MSN and Yahoo as they too cannot access hidden areas. The only catch is that a guest can only view 5 posts maximum before they receive an error stating they have to be registered to view any more forum content. From what I understand, this does not apply to search spiders as they do not use cookies when accessing a site via web browser as the rest of us do. What this means is, all currently hidden forums except "Inner Me" will be un-hidden and publicly viewable to everyone up to and including 5 mouse clicks. Any more site browsing will require the user to clear their cookies to gain another 5 clicks. The benefit will be that the search engines (in theory) will now have access to these additional areas (except Inner Me), will index them and hopefully add to our traffic number which to this day continue to fall. It's likely that we'll see less and less traffic around here until late this fall or maybe into the New Year given the software change. Much of what we had indexed took a few years to accomplish and all that work was lost in this site transformation. Rest assured, we will eventually come out ahead, right now it's just a waiting game for Google, MSN and especially Yahoo, to get their sh1t together an re-index the entire site. Thoughts? __________________ Help Support Us: Help us help you. My Daughter Rules!