Link private forums on homepage to thread instead of error message

[Admin]

I wanted to try this for my own forum and figured I'd share it here.

This mod will let you link private forums on forumhome to a specific thread for non paid members, instead of the 'you do not have permission to view' error message.

This is to increase revenue for your forum, by sending your forum visitors and members to your offer (a thread) when they try to access private content, instead of that annoying error page.

This is a really simple mod achievable via one simple template edit.

STEP 1 - Find the forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template via edit templates > Forum Home Templates.

Find the code below

<a href="{vb:link forum, {vb:raw forum}}">

You need to add some chunks of code around this to make this work.

Replace it with

<vb:if condition="!is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 1,2,3)">
<vb:if condition="$forum[forumid] == ***">
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-thread-here">
</vb:if>
</vb:if>

<vb:if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 1,2,3)">
<vb:if condition="$forum[forumid] == ***">
<a href="{vb:link forum, {vb:raw forum}}">
</vb:if>
</vb:if>

<vb:if condition="$forum[forumid] != ***">
<a href="{vb:link forum, {vb:raw forum}}">
</vb:if>

Replace each instance of 1,2,3 above with the usergroup ids that DO HAVE ACCESS to your private forum.

Replace each instance of *** with the forum id of the forum you want to link to a thread.

And naturally, replace <a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-thread-here with the URL to the thread you want your private forum to link to.

Now members who don't have access to your private section, will be sent to a thread of your choice instead of seeing the no permission error message page. This should send more traffic to your offer page promoting your paid subscription resulting in more revenue for your website.