SMF Support > SMF 1.1.x Support

Stand alone pages from topics

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Arantor:
No, what he wants to do is encourage guests to register and post. So by making it access to registered users only, only registered people can read it. The idea is that people have to register to see it - but that won't encourage them to do so, it'll just encourage them to go elsewhere.

Having the search engines be able to see the pages seems like a great idea (encouraging people to find the content) but all that happens is that after a while, Google and others will penalise a site for showing it content that isn't shown to regular guests.

The bottom line is that you can't stand over your users and beat them with a metaphorical stick to get them to do things, you have to encourage them through positive actions, not negative ones.

Coon:
Ok so what would be the way to do this? Is it tough?

Coon:
I'm not hiding anything from google. They will index the topics on separate pages. Everyone will see these topic when they click through google. They just won't be able to post unless they go to the forum and register.

Nothing is wrong with this. I want the content to be crawled. You can't post in these pages. You just read what's there.

Don't see what the issue is with google? I'm not looking for google to index pages then when people click there is no content there. I'm not doing that. I just want the benefit of both things.

Anyways, is there a way to do this? Can I create pages automatically somehow? Maybe pull the print pages and create pages from those.

Arantor:
That's the thing: you want to hide content from guests so they have to register but Google can and will penalise you for showing content to them but not to regular guests.

You're honestly better off not trying to restrict content like that - any forum that wants a public presence will have a lot of lurkers, that's how it works.

MrPhil:
What is the point of hiding content from guests when you're just going to give it to them anyway on separate pages? Why would they go to your forum (and register) when they can get it anyway elsewhere on your site? Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? You can't make content available only to Google and hide it from guests (well, there are supposedly ways to do that, based on the USER AGENT, but when Google finds out they'll send you to search engine hell).

There are already facilities (maybe as mods) for listing only the topic subjects for guests (and search engines). There are ways to output only "teasers" for post content (first 100 characters, say) for guests (and search engines). You could even do as I suggested before, and only allow guests (and search engines) to see older posts, as an incentive to sign up. But, it's a losing cause to try to present content to search engines that you hide from normal guests. They'll eventually find out and penalize you severely.

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