Private, Members Only vs Visible to Everyone

[Dismal_Bliss]

I was curious if anyone here runs a forum community that is Members Only. That is, you have to register to see all or the majority of any content.

My first forum was Members Only from 2006-2008/9 and then when Facebook became available to everyone and became all the rage, our community died. Our choices were to shut it down, or experiment with making is visible, thus indexable, and therefore discoverable. This strategy worked, and today the forum community is successful as ever.

My 2nd forum is still in its infancy and on life support, barely - lol. I have been thinking about making it Members Only for a few reasons. Having to be a member to gain access to information would be an incentive to register. Also, some of the potential future subject matter that I would encourage others to share would be sensitive and personal. Eventually I hope to have future perks and events available only to registered members or even premium members.

I was wondering if anyone uses this Members Only strategy on their forum, in whole or in part, to entice registrations. I figured this might be a good topic for discussion here in these parts

 

[kensonplays]

I am not sure if I would want to do that, to be honest. I can think of one good reason to make it member-only and admin approval even. We run a PG community, and it could mean less moderation would ever need to happen if we have to verify all members would follow the rules. As a family-safe community, I can think of that as being somewhat helpful, but it would also limit the traffic in some ways.

I'd look into ways via XF (or addons) to maybe have the first post of a thread public, but replies you have to register to see the content of replies. Then with my blog posts, I would likey keep those public since Google does seem to like blogs. Though maybe with early access to registered users?

 

[Reverie]

In my previous community people could not post as a guest in all areas, but there was a guest friendly area for questions. They could see the index, but they might not be able to read topics in all the areas. They were not able to see any posted images/signatures which allowed for privacy from just the random guest. I would keep the index pretty public, or make a category that discuss a few sections that you want more privacy for but only guests can see.

 

[Ken]

Some boards are visible to guests at my site so they can have a look around and see what the forum has to offer. Suggestions, advertising, and guest only boards are open to them.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I've had a few forums set up in the past where certain parts of the forum were only accessible by members and not by guests. I think having the whole board blocked off by guests isn't a good idea though, I like to browse and lurk on a forum before deciding if it's a community I'd like to join. Having a community blocked off by guests can impact the number of members you may potentially get. Though on the other hand, some people might like the idea of having the community be a mystery, and if they get curious they might join.

 

[kensonplays]

Some boards are visible to guests at my site so they can have a look around and see what the forum has to offer. Suggestions, advertising, and guest only boards are open to them.

That is an idea, though I am not sure how I would do that on my forum, since we are a dinosaur-focused community and well, that is very popular with people of all ages. haha

I've had a few forums set up in the past where certain parts of the forum were only accessible by members and not by guests. I think having the whole board blocked off by guests isn't a good idea though, I like to browse and lurk on a forum before deciding if it's a community I'd like to join. Having a community blocked off by guests can impact the number of members you may potentially get. Though on the other hand, some people might like the idea of having the community be a mystery, and if they get curious they might join.

If I were to do this, just a few, not the whole board.

 

[Spartan]

Gotta be a real specific niche imo for private to be worth it imo.
I kinda like what HackForums does, you can see forums, sub forums, and the list of threads in them but can’t actually view the post, but I believe bots can and it still gets indexed. i think it helps encourage new sign ups there, especially through search traffic as you can see the thread title and it could be exactly what you’re looking for.

 

[Kyng]

I have some sections that are members-only (for example, the Ask Me threads and the section for personal diaries/blogs), but the majority of my sections are guest-viewable.

 

[Cory]

When I see the entirety of a board behind a registration wall, I usually turn away from it because I have no idea what the community is like or how active it is. It's almost like the board is offline. I have only a few sections hidden on my board to help entice registrations and I think it's effective for the most part since we gain about a whole page of registrations on the member list each month. I don't mind a handful of forums being hidden from guests, but the whole board I am not so fond of being member-only.

 

[Cedric]

If you are brave enough to start such community, you better have an audience ready to join. There should always be some kind of invite system planned, releasing invites frequently. Otherwise it might get a bit dull when no new members gain access. It's an interesting concept, one I've been curious about trying for Game Junction, but most likely not gonna do.

 

[Fayble]

If you are brave enough to start such community, you better have an audience ready to join.

I totally agree with this sentiment. The concept has always caught my eye, but only for really active and popular forums. I remember there was this one GFX forum that implemented this idea and it 'urked me so much. I had to get in, like a bouncer at a club. They enticed me with the amount of activity and the quality of the graphics (the ones I was able to see from the outside). I loved the skin so much and the designers were really good at their craft. I can't remember the name of this forum for the life of me.. Long story short, I finally got in and it didn't disappoint. There were so many quality free gfx available to the community as well as tutorials and competitions. Needless to say, I was hooked!

That's another thing with this idea. Once a member finally gets approved you need to make sure it was worth the wait for them to stay. This also paves the way for word-of-mouth advertising. I'm not saying it's impossible for this idea to work. I'm just saying It's hard to get right. There are many complex layers and no room for mistakes.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Thank you for your responses everyone. I need to check my notification settings. I had no idea a discussion actually gained some momentum here.

 

[Jason]

I don't run anything like that, but I've thought about members only sections where people pay to get in or invisible members only areas where staff can talk.

 

[Empire]

Unless it's an adult environment then it needs to be locked from public view as it's dirty and bad, but then again it doesn't really matter since you can go to ****Hub and it's fully open anyway to view. So work that out I have boards not for guests and members but for staff and VIPs only.

 

[Al]

If I could be bothered to put the work in I’d go for a hybrid approach. This example is for a niche forum.

All of your niche subjects are publicly viewable and indexable. That way search engines can find and index your content which would be useful for search and traffic.

Non-niche forums, so intros, general chit-chat, anything that isn’t niche specific, is locked away until registration.

Now, my SEO knowledge is limited; but isn’t there some algorithm in relation to internal links if it shows related subjects? So the bot follows your internal links to more content related to the page content and it improves legitimacy. If it follows internal links to non-niche subjects will it have the opposite effect?

Someone with more expertise (@Mike30) may be able to confirm or deny this theory.

 

[otis booard]

my webs.com group is a private group as i was told that i was an unofficial ceo of webs.com, my otis booard group is visible to all as i can share what i do for otis booard