I run a membership site and use Discourse for discussion. Members are assigned to a group which can then view threads in certain categories.
If someone who isn’t logged in and a member of that group tries to access those threads, they just get a message that says “Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.”
Is there any way to make those threads viewable, maybe even the first few posts, but hide the rest and show some kind of message that it is only for members of that group?
I guess the bigger issue is that content in a members-only space (which is supported in Discourse) comes up more like a 404 error than a note that there’s something there.
Even a way to customize that “Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.” screen would be helpful.
@dylanb install the static pages plugin (I think it’s Procourse-something-something) and put a custom link on the navbar or something (there are theme-components for this) pointing to it.
The static page can be something like this one on TekInvestor: Bli en Insider
Or take a screenshot of the topic list of one of your “invisible” categories and people can get a preview of what it looks like.
I’m up for something like “This page exists, but you don’t have access” it can help both for unlogged users, and just right out not allowed ones. And have a difference from the 404.
Yes and no. It can make content more discoverable because there’s something Google can index… but if the vast majority of traffic instantly bounces off the page because they’re annoyed about having to register to view the full content… then you’re unlikely to rank highly anyway.
For a membership site you usually have a main domain with a website at example.com with tons of cool content, and then discuss.example.com or talk.example.com where members can go, yes?
