As brands are coming to the realization that not all Facebook Likes are equal and that a Like may be a good measure of health of a Page, but not a good business metric, the value of Like gates come into question.

Facebook Like gates, sometimes called fan gates, increase your Page’s Likes by requiring visitors to Like a Page before viewing content on select Tabs. With each Like, there is a chance your future posts will show up in that visitor’s news stream, creating engagement opportunity. In addition, Likes are becoming increasingly important for SEO.

On the downside, not all Likes are created equal. Requiring Likes at Like gates results in lower quality Likes than organic Likes. Like gates can be an annoyance, and sometimes even a barrier to fans. On the properties I’ve worked with, we see about a 20% bounce rate on Like gates. Like gates also block search crawlers from the gated Tab unless specific customization is done to provide indexible content for bots outside the gate.

Below are some guiding questions to help determine if you should Like gate content or not.

Consideration	If yes . . .	If no . . .
Is volume of Likes an important metric?	Like gate, but note Likes are a good indicator of the health of a Page, but a poor business metric.	Review the other considerations
Does the tab content need to be discoverable by search engines?	Don’t Like gate.	Review the other considerations
Do you want to encourage a casual audience?	If exposure to the content is more important than securing a like, then don’t Like gate.	Like gate
Will the content have significant value to the audience?	Like gate	Don’t Like gate
Will future content have significant value to this audience.	Like gate	Don’t Like gate
Do you need to reach this same audience again in the near future?	Like gate	Review the other considerations
Is the quality of the Likes more important than the volume?	Don’t Like gate	Review the other considerations