Private Forums, vBSeo?

[IrProNet.com]

I am preparing all my shedules for purchasing vbseo, I have a question:

I have some valuable forums in my board but i want to let only users to see content of those forums and not for guests. this is for the sake of improving registration rates.

How vbseo, deos seoing in this case?
Will my user-read only contents take place in history?

All the best,
ParsF.com

[briansol]

There is 0 seo to be had if its not open.

There are plugins on .org that let google bots see that site as members, but this is VERY black hat, and may get you banned from google permanently.

Furthermore, I don't think you'll have better success being closed. 90% of people who find something won't register to read it. They'll click back, and go to the next result in google.
However, if they CAN read it, and like what they see, they might stick around.

Afterall, what's the point of having 2312431423423 members if you have 3 who have a post count that's not 0? waste of database space, and people's times.

Unless its a private or restricted/paid resouce, open it up.

[Juan Muriente]

There's yet another alternative.

Google: Flashchat Rewrite

vBSEO.com comes up as the most relevant resource for that keyphrase. Even though the actual thread content is not accessible by guests or spiders, its title appears in both, the forum list and the archive (as sitemap) page.

Therefore, you increase the chances of people finding your content even if it's closed to non-registered users when you set it up accordingly via your vB admincp.

As Brian mentions, it's always best to make all your content available to guests and spiders, but if you really need to keep it closed, then you might want to consider giving limited view access to non-registered users to make the most of it.