Why can't SE's just allow cloaking for forums??

**GeorgeB** · 05-30-2007, 12:34 PM

It really ticks me off that SEs wouldn't make an exception for forums but then again it would be hard to manage and develop an algorithm that can determine what a forum is and isn't etc.

But man it sure would be nice to have the SEs show content for the forum but when a user tries to view it they must register. I wouldn't make my entire forum that way but certain sections with valuable content I sure would use this on.

WMW does it and seems to get away with it for some reason...

**GeorgeB** · 05-31-2007, 09:00 AM

No thoughts on this one eh?

**BamaStangGuy** · 05-31-2007, 02:15 PM

It doesn't bother me any. :P

**rex_b** · 05-31-2007, 05:44 PM

Why not just show the first post and to read on they have to register.

Makes for a cleaner page for the SEs and onpage SEO

**john546** · 06-30-2007, 07:45 PM

Personally, if I see forums where you have to register to see the any post in the forums, I just leave and don't bother registering.

I know for a fact that most of these forums will not get that much traffic from the search engines as they can't crawl the pages, so they may also be rather empty with visitors and are most probably not quite as active as some of the same forums in the niche that allow guests to read the threads / posts.

**GeorgeB** · 07-02-2007, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by john294

I know for a fact that most of these forums will not get that much traffic from the search engines as they can't crawl the pages, so they may also be rather empty with visitors and are most probably not quite as active as some of the same forums in the niche that allow guests to read the threads / posts.

Actually....

Most forum owners that do this, do it because they can get away with it. They already have pretty large, very active forums. So they don't really care about new registrations.

So no, they're not usually dead forums. MySpacePros - If you want to be successful monetizing MySpace, you've come to the right place. is an example of a forum that does this.

EDIT: UGHH!! These automatic titles on links are really annoying....

**john546** · 07-02-2007, 12:42 PM

What I'm saying is even the big forums could get more traffic to their forums if they were listed for them pages in the search engines. If them pages can't get crawled then they will get less visitors compared to what they could have.

**imported_Tekime** · 07-03-2007, 08:41 PM

Have you thought about just using some JavaScript code to popup a near-browser-sized registration page for unregistered visitors? Show the most basic register form and with some AJAX tricks you could let them register, log in and view the thread in 10 seconds without even having a page reload.

I doubt many people would bother disabling JS to get around a 10 second form. How many are really going to do that anyway?

Just some thoughts. Wish I had more time to experiment with all these darn thoughts!

Could probably whip this up in an evening.