Seriously, every time I look at the bottom of each page (ie. iPhone board) there are a decent 1,500 people view it, but no more than 10% of them are actual members. More members = more activity and more $ for the owner (if he gets any from the ads or whatever). Non-members should be able to browse the boards, but I seriously don't think they should be allowed to view threads without registering. It promotes activity if they register, and takes two minutes.
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- Thread starter Squilly
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It ends up creating a lot of dead accounts in the database and using up names that future active members would likely want. It doesn't really matter as far as ads and pageviews go. To be honest when a site forces me to register in order to view their content, I tend to just hit the back button on my google search and go to the next link on my search.
If I see a forum where I can't actually see the contents within, then I often go find something someone else. And, a majority of people (like you mentioned) are viewing threads...where the ads are. If users are only met with "You must be logged in to do that" pages, then they won't be able to reach the ads.
Oh, and other repercussions... no Google links. Googlebot can't sign into a forum, so anything not visible to guests can't be searched for on Google/Mroogle/Bing/Yahoo!/etc. <sarcasm>That wouldn't kill activity</sarcasm>. Many people join because they see (and read) that we have answers to so many questions answered, but if they can't see them, it's a moot point. And more users does not mean more activity. It means a larger database. And less available usernames.
Oh, and other repercussions... no Google links. Googlebot can't sign into a forum, so anything not visible to guests can't be searched for on Google/Mroogle/Bing/Yahoo!/etc. <sarcasm>That wouldn't kill activity</sarcasm>. Many people join because they see (and read) that we have answers to so many questions answered, but if they can't see them, it's a moot point. And more users does not mean more activity. It means a larger database. And less available usernames.