Remove whos online for guests

I just installed this product [Board Optimization] Do not show who's online for guests - vBulletin.org Forum

Here is what it says on the site

What does this product do?

This very easy to use product turns off who's online for guests on forumhome, forumdisplay or showthread and therefore dramaticely improves forum speed if you have lots of guests. Turning off who's online for gaining speed is suggested by eva2000 in vbulletin.com > server configuration forum. My forum was slow having 150 users browsing my forum, now it's running with more than 300 users online.

thought i would let everyone know about this hack. I have only just installed it so I have not seen how much server load has improved at this stage.

But thought it was quite a nice hack for your sites optimization.




However.


Is it good to have those stats showing to guests and spiders?

I personally prefer NOT having "Who's online". Despite it basically looking messy - I don't think it helps for SEO purposes with all those extra links to member profile pages.

The one benefit is providing a graphical representation of the activity. I think that this can be better achieved with a graphical "usage meter" or something similar - I'm sure there must be a hack available for this at vb.org somewhere.

Does the "who's online" feature provide much in terms of server load to begin with?

I only have Who's Online showing on my vBadvanced CMPS page. I removed it from the forums home page long ago.

Why use a hack for this? There are settings that apply to this for each usergroup.

Well currently It's not showing for guests, so does that include spiders?

and a guy asked above, Does the "who's online" feature provide much in terms of server load to begin with? Because I didnt see a drop in server performance for turning it off for guests. Maybe I'll turn it off completey and see how that goes.

If it turns it off for guests, it is turning it off for spiders.

I like having Whos Online shown. Helps guests distinguish the activity of the forum quickly

I have it show how many online, just not every link to every member profile, so they see activity and I save performance/links

Don't see why you need a hack for this, just a simple template conditional will do the job fine.

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

I like having Whos Online shown. Helps guests distinguish the activity of the forum quickly

Which can have a detremental effect in some instances.

Forget all the SEO I think it looks awful, and busy sites when it is 1/5 of the page yuk.

Well how many people do you have on at any1 time.


Mine is usually about 100-200 with a cookie time of an hour or less by memory.

So When is it time to remove it completely?

Originally Posted by Michael

Which can have a detremental effect in some instances.

Just depends on how active your site is