Boosting Forum Memberships

[worldir]

seem like there are alot of GUEST viewing the posting without signing up as members ? I know of several high traffic website when post on the forum, there not much reply althought viewship is high....

How can encourge these GUESTs to sign up and be more interactive participants ?

[LeenkzMike]

I think interesting threads are the best medicine for this!

[Colleen]

A lot of spiders are listed as guests, nothing you do will make them sign up and post something.

[EmmaB]

aww Kalina beat me to it Like she said most of the time these "guests" are bots and spiders

[Colleen]

aww Kalina beat me to it Like she said most of the time these "guests" are bots and spiders

Do you think we could persuade them if we offered them spidey food? Maybe then they'd come to their spidey senses.

[worldir]

no wonder saw 26 members, 500 plus GUESTs online... thought most just want some to absorb information without contributing

mg:mg:mg:

[Colleen]

no wonder saw 26 members, 500 plus GUESTs online... thought most just want some to absorb information without contributing

mg:mg:mg:

That's known as the Yahoo Slurp spider, it's known to do that, it does it all day long, everyday, it has nothing else to do I guess.

[Autumn]

That means anything you say here may be viewable on the www via the search engines within minutes of you posting here

[Hurley4540]

Make it so you have to register to view

[benjaminp]

I prefer people to signup out of want to signup, not because they have to if they want to see the content.

[Zap]

Make it so you have to register to view

That will certainly keep the spiders away, and most potential members too.

Think about it... Did you just come here and sign up or did you read some threads first?

[EmmaB]

yeah, most people like to if they would enjoy the content before joining lol.

[benjaminp]

A members only section of a forum may be a good idea as hopefully people will like what they see elsewhere and find the "hidden" forum just too intriguing to pass up

[Colleen]

Make it so you have to register to view

I cannot tell you the numerous times I've encountered a forum like that, and I just left and went elsewhere.

It doesn't work.

It's better to let them see what they're in for and decide for themselves if they want to join in, you make it so they want to join, not make them feel it's a stuck-up secret society.

[Zap]

I cannot tell you the numerous times I've encountered a forum like that, and I just left and went elsewhere.

It doesn't work.

It's better to let them see what they're in for and decide for themselves if they want to join in, you make it so they want to join, not make them feel it's a stuck-up secret society.

As has been said... People just won't join.
(And you obviously won't get ANY search engine traffic either.)

[Colleen]

I was reiterating

[Zap]

I was reiterating

Me too. :P

And adding the bit about zero SE traffic for those who couldn't work that out.

[Colleen]

Me too. :P

And adding the bit about zero SE traffic for those who couldn't work that out.

You should have been at breakfast so I could throw food at you!

[Zap]

You should have been at breakfast so I could throw food at you!

That would have been nice. Tropical breakfast, so I would imagine (and hope) that it involved fresh pineapple! Mmmmm! Yummm!

Where was it, btw? I wouldn't mind trying it out if it was good.

[Colleen]

That would have been nice. Tropical breakfast, so I would imagine (and hope) that it involved fresh pineapple! Mmmmm! Yummm!

Where was it, btw? I wouldn't mind trying it out if it was good.

You'd be opening your mouth for flying food, lol!

I left the address in reply to your comment to my blog entry.

[Zap]

Cora's. I'll have to try it. I've heard good things about it.

[Big Dan]

You're always gonna have guests viewing public threads. Spiders index the content and people pick it up from a search engine and click on. Lots of times they aren't even on the site for more than a minute or two. They stay marked as online until their session expires. vBulletin's default session length is 15 minutes, so if I clicked on your site now I'd be a guest there for 15 minutes even if I closed my browser.

Another thing to consider is once you get people to register lots of times they don't post. I recently made a new user group on my forum for people with 25+ posts, out of over a thousand members only 250 or so (roughtly 1/4) have more than 25 posts. That's a startling statistic, to me anyhow.

[Hurley4540]

That will certainly keep the spiders away, and most potential members too.

Think about it... Did you just come here and sign up or did you read some threads first?

If I remember correctly I just read the forums, not threads then signed up
In that case, make the forums viewable but the content not until you sign up

[benjaminp]

If I remember correctly I just read the forums, not threads then signed up
In that case, make the forums viewable but the content not until you sign up

You may be an exception but I think many will agree that they will not signup to a forum that hides all content.

[Hurley4540]

Yeah I know, I was just saying

[benjaminp]

Yeah I know, I was just saying

So was I. I would hardly call my post Un-useful.....

[Hurley4540]

Oops. sorry, I didn't mean to Groan

[worldir]

how about using the rewards cash from posting regular to buy items like a virtual house/commerical shops/cars or discount travel/hotel/airline tickets to make it more fun and attract more memberships and posting

[Colleen]

If I remember correctly I just read the forums, not threads then signed up
In that case, make the forums viewable but the content not until you sign up

I'd love to see you run a forum, it would go nowhere, fast.