Hello,

I run a small forum for myself and friends. I am glad they use it and it is coming along great. My only concern is that my main page does not get nearly as many hits as my forum. Is there anyway to prevent viewers from automatically typing in the URL to our forums? Is it possible to automatically redirect them to the main page and force them to click the Forums link via the main page?

Thank You

Jolt

If you set a session variable which indicates if the home page has been set and redirects to the home page until it's set, then that should do what you want.

Hey, thanks for your response. Do you mind showing me an example? I am new to the whole PHP coding. I knew a PHP code would get it done.

you could write in php to block as on the referrer, ex: if they came from http://yourdomain.com and you only want people from http://yourdomain.com/index.php then add all the ones you want to block in the array and the else will run if they didn't come from what you have listed to block

PHP Code:

 <?php
$deny = array("http://yourdomain.com/index.php", "AnotherRefferalAddressToblock");
if (in_array ($_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"], $deny)) {
header("location: http://www.google.com/");
exit();
} else{
header("location: http://www.yahoo.com/");
exit();
} ?>

There are so many ways of doing this. pm if you need personal help.

+

Sessions are find for this situation!, but there are ways around unproper sessions if you don't code them properly.

On the homepage add this at the VERY top:

PHP Code:

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['homepage_shown'] = "yes";
?>

On EVERY other page, add this at the top:

PHP Code:

<?php
session_start();
if ($_SESSION['homepage_shown'] != "yes") {
  header("Location: index.php");
  exit();
}
?>

Assuming your homepage is at index.php

Originally Posted by cwboaze

you could also write in php to only allow that visitor to visit that page from another page the referrer

Problem with that is that a number of people have security things installed in their browser which hide the referrer, so they wouldn't be able to access any other page on your site but the homepage.

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

On the homepage add this at the VERY top:

PHP Code:

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['homepage_shown'] = "yes";
?>

On EVERY other page, add this at the top:

PHP Code:

<?php
session_start();
if ($_SESSION['homepage_shown'] != "yes") {
  header("Location: index.php");
  exit();
}
?>

Assuming your homepage is at index.php

Maybe this is my novice PHP mind acting up, but I did exactly as you said and had no luck at all.

I placed the above code in my index.php and the latter in my Forums/index.php.

It doesn't work.

It's probably that you need to change the header() function as index.php when in a subfolder will still refer to the subfolder. You may want to try the full URL for redirection:

PHP Code:

 <?php
session_start();
if ($_SESSION['homepage_shown'] != "yes") {
  header("Location: http://www.mydomain.com/index.php");
  exit();
}
?>

Or

PHP Code:

 <?php
session_start();
if ($_SESSION['homepage_shown'] != "yes") {
  header("Location: ../index.php");
  exit();
}
?>

Honestly.. Why would you want to do that? Think about it this way. Would you rather take the 5 minute detour or go straight to the road you want and save 4 extra minutes? The whole idea of your site should be to give users what they want. Forcing them to see what they obviously don't want to see will just make them mad and make them want to leave. The Internet is all about convenience. People can get the same data the Internet has to offer in books but they can get that info faster. I hope I've said enough to change your mind but if I haven't really think it through. I know of many sites who do stuff like this and have lost millions of users every time they did it. Also if there's info on the front page you want them to see then just put it up on the forum.. If that's not your reason then there should be absolutely no reason for them to go straight to the homepage every time.. One last point - Your users have gone through the trouble to either bookmark the forums URL or usually flat out memorize it. If they're willing to go through that (I know it doesn't sound like much but it is) then they obviously have a good reason to skip your homepage. Maybe no useful content on your homepage? A link to your site would be pretty good :S.

I gotta say that even though I've provided you the code, I agree 100% with Matt. I hate it when sites don't let me do what I want and have stopped going to sites for much less.

Matt: TK is coming your way!

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

I gotta say that even though I've provided you the code, I agree 100% with Matt. I hate it when sites don't let me do what I want and have stopped going to sites for much less.

Matt: TK is coming your way!

Thanks and ditto .