Is VBSEO worth the $149.00 cost?

The question was asked on vb.org if the paid hack, VBSEO, is worth the $149.00 cost.



IMO...

No, its not.

What your basically paying for is the mod-rewrite since most if not all of the other elements are available for free as a hack or something you can do yourself as a template edit easily.

VBSEO says their software:


vBSEO makes it easier for search engines to crawl more of your valuable vBulletin content faster and more often giving you higher keyword relevancy.

By installing vBSEO for your vBulletin forums you should expect to:

Get more of your forum pages indexed in the major search engines
Get your pages indexed faster
Improve your keyword relevancy for all pages
Prevent possible duplicate content penalties
The result of installing vBSEO you should expect is:

Higher visitor to member conversion rate (i.e. gain more new members faster)
Get visitors who are more highly targeted to the content you provide
Increase the monthly revenues earned from your forums
Improve your chances of achieving big-board.com status

Ok, now that said. What VBSEO basically does is change your URLs to more simple URLs without variables.

A thread titled:
Probably a stupid question, but...

Ends up with a URL like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/f2/probably-stupid-question-but-2429/ (http://www.yourdomain.com/f2/probably-stupid-question-but-2429/)

Instead of
http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2429

Now this does 2 things basically. It makes a URL with no variables and it adds keywords to the url. While it was once true that search engine spiders had a difficult time spidering URLs with multiple variables, this is no longer the case.

Here is proof. Take a look at Google's index of vBulletin.com pages HERE (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-42,GGLD:en&q=site%3Awww%2Evbulletin%2Ecom) - vb.com has 2,750,000 pages indexed in google. Lets check vb.org HERE (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-42%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=site%3Awww.vbulletin.org&btnG=Search)- 445,000 pages indexed - how about a few others? Digital Point (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-42%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=site%3Aforums.digitalpoint.com&btnG=Search) - 567,000, TIVO Community (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-42%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=site%3Awww.tivocommunity.com%2Ftivo-vb%2F) - 1,340,000 pages indexed.
All of these have stock vb urls and are clearly indexed fine. So, we have now established that the mod rewrite isnt necessary to be indexed by Google.

SO that leaves us with the keywords in the URL.

Are they helpful in getting ranked? Short answer is yes. However, Google uses over 100 different factors in determining how a particular page ranks for a search query. Each Factor carries different level of importance. Oh, one more thing, Google changes these around pretty regularily, so what works well today may not work tomorrow. Point being, they might 'help' in getting your page ranked, but they are onlya small part of the equasion.

Let me explain something else. Being indexed means little if your pages dont rank well. The difference is this. Indexed means google maintains a listing of your page in its computers. Ranked Well means when someone searches for a phrase that is important to your site, your site appears in the first few pages in the listings. It takes alot more then just words in a url to get ranked well, unless its a very obscure phrase.

Here is what I think is a great example.

Search for the phrase vBulletin (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-42,GGLD:en&q=vbulletin). That phrase is the most important phrase to someone trying to sell a vBulletin product. vBseo doesnt appear in the first 10 pages! vBulletin Webmaster (http://www.vbwebmaster.com/) appears 3rd after vBulletin.com (http://www.vbulletin.com/) and vBulletin Fans (http://www.vbulletin-fans.com/). None of those sites use a mod rewrite or have the keyword in the url.

It is my opinion that although its a help, its a minor help.

If you want to rank better, Here is what I suggest. First, spend half that money any buy Arron Walls SEO BOOK (http://www.seobook.com/). Read it. Learn about Search Engines. What it takes is too long to go into here. Its best you read the book and learn about SEO.

Second, visit and become active in forums like Digital Point (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/), vB Webmaster (http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums), and Webmaster World (http://www.webmasterworld.com/home.htm), ask questions, and learn about SEO.

Third, SEO is something you have to work for. There isnt a 'magic pill' you can install and instantly rank high. It takes time and effort. Its not a plugin. BUT, you CAN do it.

Oh, and to be completely forthright. I was offered free copies of VBSEO to review the product. I declined the offer. I also removed the VBSEO ad from my Google Adsense. Why? Because I honestly think its unecessary. I dont want to suggest or recommend somthing to VBW members that I dont believe in, at least to some extent.

Let me add one more thing. In a PM discussion here, vBSEO said this to me:

I have to say I agree with you %100 in the fact that mod_rewrite is not necessary to get pages indexed.

-

ofcource it is not and it will never be ..


he made a very nice HACK but with the price and closed source code .. i dont think big webmaster going to west 1 min with it .. go look how people are very upset at vb.org and vb.com ..

the bad think is .. he use the beta user to ads his hack and lie to other people that they pay when they dont .. just trying to scam other user..

I dont think id be so harsh as to say scam - but in the end, I think it is misleading in my opinion. Nobody has offered me any proof that it works. Hell, vBseo offered me free copies of the hack to test - I declined. If I thought it worked, I would have jumped on the freebie.

I also havent asked them to donate a prize to the upcoming contest.

I dont think id be so harsh as to say scam - but in the end, I think it is misleading in my opinion.

The reson i called it scam because there is vBSeo beta/Or Who get a free copy of vBSEO user at vb.org they dont pay for this product but lie to other people that they pay and say it is worth of $150 and going every where ads this product .. so what that called ? if it not scam ? it is just like try to fool other people and let them to pay


vBseo offered me free copies of the hack to test - I declined. If I thought it worked, I would have jumped on the freebie.



YES he offer for me a free copy but later when i findout that the price is like this and also close source code .. i ignore it..

he do it for alot of other user ..but the idea is from the free copy is just ads his product that is the only point .. :wave:

Hi Joeychgo. I am not even sure that it is worth my while responding, you are well aware of my opinions, but here goes...

You encourage people to read up on SEO, but fail to realise that other people have also read those resources and so have got great ways of applying those principles to the vBulletin package. There are unfortunately still so many things that are wrong with the basic vBulletin package. But that is not to say that great forums cant rank well without vbseo - yours and the others you mention are great examples. With high Google PR, pages on the basic vBulletin package can and do rank well. vBulletin has also got the base package heaps better with the latest updates.

vBulletin still has lots of issues that vbseo fixes - next thread/previous thread, lastpost, newest post. It also has as default that the threads on the archive go directly through to the actual threads rather than the copy. I fought hard and got vbulletin to add the option to go straight to the threads, and they have that option there, but only an option and not the default setting.

vBSEO certainly has the rewrites, and these are not just to be sniffed at. The links are certainly lots more clickable when they include the thread titles. They in fact get the pages one point higher PR than string url's - not that PR means much, but its certainly part of the equation.

vBSEO is certainly not everything but it sorts out many issues, and provides tools to use for others. Onpage SEO and keyword selection is another major part of the equation that I help many clients with. Only this week I have worked with a client and together found a phrase for their forum with lots of traffic and not too much competition. Prior to my help, the onpage seo of the site was shocking - keyphrases were not being targeted. Now with the template changes I recommend, plus vBSEO, plus heaps of thought as to wording of the threads and forums... the client will be well on the way. But thats not all. Of course heaps of quality links are needed to then get the forum ranking, and time needed to get sandbox issues sorted.

With SEO everything needs to be right to be the best. You can be good with one or two things done well or half well, but to be best, you need to have everything right.

I always say to clients that have hundreds of thousands through their forum:
"If so many people like the forum, then how many more people would like it if only they knew about it because it ranked for every thread, and every forum etc"
SEO is certainly not everything, you are personally doing so many things right - I am posting here because I saw this thread on an email, not because of coming through Google. Then there are the competitions... SEO is only one part of the mix, vBSEO is only one part of the mix. But why not be the best that you can be on the search engines as well. Yes, vbseo is certainly worth the $.

vBulletin has also got the base package heaps better with the latest updates.


I agree.



vBulletin still has lots of issues that vbseo fixes - next thread/previous thread, lastpost, newest post. It also has as default that the threads on the archive go directly through to the actual threads rather than the copy. I fought hard and got vbulletin to add the option to go straight to the threads, and they have that option there, but only an option and not the default setting.


I agree.



vBSEO certainly has the rewrites, and these are not just to be sniffed at. The links are certainly lots more clickable when they include the thread titles. They in fact get the pages one point higher PR than string url's - not that PR means much, but its certainly part of the equation.


I agree. Except that we have no way of knowing that PR goes up 1 point because of the mod rewrite. If you have some data on this I would love to see it.



Onpage SEO and keyword selection is another major part of the equation that I help many clients with.

Of course heaps of quality links are needed to then get the forum ranking, and time needed to get sandbox issues sorted.


I agree. But all that can be done without vbseo and saving the $150 - and SHOULD be done. Most people dont understand that, AT BEST, vBSEO is only a start and by no means the whole package needed to rank high in search engines. I argue that, the mod rewrite is unnecessary - and that the rest that the package does is available free via hacks or simple template mods.

What bothers me is that people are THINKING that the mod rewrite is the most important thing - and by far thats not the case. Its the icing on the cake if anything. Keyword selection and targeting, quality link building and such are all much more important factors.

For the guy with $150 to spend - is he better off buying VBSEO and knowing nothing about the other, more effective and important parts of seo, or is he better off spending half the money and buying Aaron Wall's book and learning how to do the other things? I can almost guarantee that with vBSEO alone - rankings wont change much, if at all. But, doing the other things and not doing vBSEO, rankings WILL increase.



With SEO everything needs to be right to be the best. You can be good with one or two things done well or half well, but to be best, you need to have everything right.

SEO is certainly not everything, you are personally doing so many things right -


Thank you. You and I disagee on some points, but we share the same opinions on others. The nature of the beast I suppose. Doesnt mean I dont have a level of respect for you.

:D :D Of course - im still above you in google for vbulletin seo (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-42,GGLD:en&q=vbulletin+seo) (sorry - had to sneak that in) :D :D

-

Of course - im still above you in google for vbulletin seo (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-42,GGLD:en&q=vbulletin+seo) (sorry - had to sneak that in)

Only because I dont have a page specifically for that term! I happen to be above you for seo vbulletin, and search engine optimize vbulletin...

You are certainly doing well.

I have seen people do wonderful jobs at getting vbseo, and applying the principles that I talk about on my forum. In fact, I prefer to try and teach people at the same time. It means that they are less likely to mess it up when they next update their pages. Personally, I get a mechanic to look after my car, even when I have changed the oil myself a few times. Personally, I got an SEO to help me when I first started.

With seo I consider that you have to in general do everything right all at once. What I find fascinating, is that I have even seo'ed an SEO forum that had thousands through it every day.

If a person did not have $149 - they should borrow it, and borrow a bit more to get me to work with them on the forum. It really is worth it. :D

Personally, I get a mechanic to look after my car, even when I have changed the oil myself a few times. Personally, I got an SEO to help me when I first started.

With seo I consider that you have to in general do everything right all at once. What I find fascinating, is that I have even seo'ed an SEO forum that had thousands through it every day.

If a person did not have $149 - they should borrow it, and borrow a bit more to get me to work with them on the forum. It really is worth it. :D

Give a man a fish, and he will eat dinner tonight. Teach that man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime...

Or something like that :D

Actually, I would suggest they hire you long before I suggest vBSEO. If they cant afford you then they should learn a little about SEO first. There are plenty of resources. But given the choice of hiring you, (or me, or another professional) or installing vbseo - I would hire someone every time.

Someone had to explain to me how to set up my databse when I built my first vBulletin, I learned. I have sought the knowlege, and still seek to refine that knowlege further as I know you do.

The problem for me is, vBseo is promoted as an SEO solution. People believe that if they install vbseo they will make it to the top of the rankings, when what vBSEO does is a minor part of the SEO equasion at best. It take alot more to get ranked well then a mod rewrite.

Honestly, I would have ALOT easier time recommending vbseo if it was like $40 and didnt have the mod-rewrite, and was promoted as a convienant first step toward SEO.

I dont expect everyone to learn all the intricacies of SEO - but learn some of the basics. It will give you much better results.

Oh - and seo vbulletin, search engine optimize vbulletin, and vbulletin seo are all meaningless terms to worry about because they arent searched for. SO we're both spitting in the wind.
:wave:

This is an important point. (I know you understand this but I should explain for everyone else)

What keyword phrases you rank for are important because some are rarely searched for. Does you no good to rank #1 for a phrase that nobody ever searches for.

To give you a little idea of what is searched for in relation to vBulletin -

vbulletin 149.0/day
daddo's vbulletin 84.0/day
vbulletin styles 38.0/day
vbulletin skins 28.0/day
vbulletin skin 25.0/day
vbulletin style 22.0/day
vbulletin templates 17.0/day

Ranking high for a phrase like SEO VBULLETIN does you no good. (however, vBwebmaster (http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums) ranks #3 for the phrase vBulletin (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-42%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=vbulletin&btnG=Search))

I use this tool at Digital Point: Keyword Suggestion Tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/) to find good keywords.

What you want to do is start with your main keyword. Lets say you have a Mustang forum. I might first use the keyword Ford Mustang and work from there looking for keywords that are not the hardest (which is usually the most searched for) and target for those.

Im going to stop here because this is getting off topic. Im going to put together a whole post on this topic.

You are totally on the right track. Keyphrase selection well deserves lots written about it.

I use the dp tool you mention all the time, and its a great way to get the creative juices flowing about a website.

If you advertise on Google, the stats on there are also a great way of getting even more accurate stats.

Short and sweet post given the thread title.

You are totally on the right track. Keyphrase selection well deserves lots written about it.

I use the dp tool you mention all the time, and its a great way to get the creative juices flowing about a website.



That is one reason I dont like vBSEO! The forum owner doesnt get the creativity and uniquness juices going.

Now thats a provocative statement if there ever was one. I have personally found the vBSEO forum has been a great place to get people focussed into doing all parts of SEO.

vBSEO have been amazingly creative in the different parts of their package. The custom rewrites where other vbulletin addons are able to have their url's rewritten as well - an amazing part of the hack. All the rel=nofollows, the conditional sigs hack, the innovative Google sitemap (more featured than the one I produced!), the way that you can pick whatever you want your url to look like. The relevant phrases idea was one that grew out of my discussions with them. A great way to put the first x words of the post into the meta description - at least that is how I use it. They have been amazingly open to good suggestions.

vBSEO have really produced some innovative stuff.

I think that the best part of what they have done is the support that they provide, the continued development, and the bug free standard of their final versions. A few bugs every so often, but they soon get fixed. They have done a 100% job in their part of the SEO of vBulletin. I know, I produced what I considered to be a 100% job of SEO'ing pre vb3.5 versions. I decided to support vBSEO only because theirs was better than mine. I have seen no other hacks that approach the vBSEO standard of excellance in their rewrites and all the other aspects of their work. I have looked at others, and sadly, what I have seen so far is not doing people any service at all.

So I just did a post, and say I want to post that resulting url into an email or into another forum to promote this thread.

http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11217&posted=1#post11217

Tell me what you think of that url!

Will a link to it get your proper page any Google PR
Will a link to that url confuse the search engines as to what url should be ranked for that phrase?
Would the proper url of the thread be a better url to land me after making a post?
My pre vBulletin 3.5 hacks changed the urls returned after posting, to the thread url, with the #post1121 number after them to show people back to the actual post made. With paginated threads, the correct page was also included in the url.
vBSEO has extended that to have the rewritten thread url returned after posts are made, and also has the rewritten urls in emails about the threads
Therefore, if anyone links using any of the url's, you get maximum benefit from the link. The links get that thread to the top where it belongs.
And all old url's 301 redirect to the proper rewritten url'sThey even rewrite the url's that have "highlighted" in the url. I found a few of those in the Google cache for my site.

All covered. Its a simple decision to go with vBSEO.

No no - I didnt explain myself correctly.

I was referring to the creativity that comes from doing some of these code modifications yourself, figuring out what things do and what effects they have. Finding new keywords and keyword niches, etc etc.

@T2DMan...still waiting for you to finish up some work for me at my site ;) ;)

Mat Cutts of Google Chimes in:
(for those of you who dont know, Matt Cutts is a google engineer)

Joeychgo, off-hand I’m not sure, but I thought we did a pretty good job of crawling vBulletin software without needing any extra software. If a bulletin board piece of software can respond to a request without a session ID, I think our bot is normally smart enough to try stripping off the session ID for most common bulletin board software.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/comments/#comment-5358

Web-Mastery has rated high in the rankings with a standard vBulletin package, without an SEO Mod., so I feel that the content of the threads is the most important SEO factor!

I do believe in strong URL's though and if this program will help an operator who is not a coder get great results it has to be worth the money!

Buy and download (it's in Adobe Reader format) @ Amazon.com:

Beginning PHP5, Apache, and MySQL Web Development
-- Elizabeth Naramore, Jason Gerner, Yann Le Scouarnec
Wrox Programmer -to- Programmer Series

And goto page: 42.

It'll teach you how to modify URL variables and it's tail (the ugly numbers after the URL) which is called a query string.

Price: $26.39

Small snippet from the book (about all copyright allows):


There are a few disadvantages to passing variables through a URL:


Everyone can see the values of the variables, so passing sensitiv information isn't really very secure using this method.

The user can change the variable value in the URL, leaving your site potentially open to showing something you'd rather not show.

A user might also pull up inaccurate or old information using a saved URL with older variables embedded in it.


It'll teach you a heck about php in the process, too (even teach you how to build your own forum <-- yes exercises are included in that book!).

Price: Priceless. :D

If you've worked around vBulletin for a while the stuff discussed and sample exercises aren't hard to pick up. Just be a very, very, very, careful typer!

Chris

Yeah that is a great way to get files you would not be able to get any other way! ;)

I have pulled photos like that before. :D

You guys are all hot on climbing to the top of the index with VBULLETIN as a keyword. My priority wish is to GET RID OF VBULLETIN as a keyword!

If you look at the source for any vBulletin page, you see the words forum and vBulletin absolutely PLASTERED all through the code. I want my own site theme as the main keys, not what produces my site. Vbulletin is absolutely irrelavent to my site customers and I even went so far as to get the non-branding license.

If you run a non-forum related site (vertical market) take a look at your forum pages with the Google Adsense Preview Tool and you'll be shocked at what you see. The ads are all about PhPBB, vBulletin, free forums and other forum related crap! Hell, I'd rather deliver free PSAs than some of the tripe they come up with. Obviously my SE ranking suffers relative to my market if this is the case.

Figure this out and you'll be a star!

See Remove "Powered by vBulletin" from title (http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11295)

Where's my star? :D


If you look at the source for any vBulletin page, you see the words forum and vBulletin absolutely PLASTERED all through the code. I want my own site theme as the main keys, not what produces my site. Vbulletin is absolutely irrelavent to my site customers and I even went so far as to get the non-branding license.

Figure this out and you'll be a star!

Sorry. The "powered by" is long gone and the thread title is my header title.

Sorry. The "powered by" is long gone and the thread title is my header title.

By the way, posting this or trying to, got me a: Fatal error: Undefined class name 'vb_queuemail' in /home/vbw/public_html/forums/includes/functions.php on line 627

I could be wrong, but I think the only other instance of vBulletin is in the copyright --

IM going to be writing a post on keyword relevance soon. But let me point this out. Every button has alt text. (example, hover over post reply) Removing some of that and replacing /editing some others could very well help you out. On this post alone there is a TON of alt text floating around that could be optimized.

Like I said, thats for an article I plan on writing very soon, but it gives you someplace to look.

I went to one of my board's posts and brought up the source.

The word FORUM is used 122 damned times! No wonder a Google ad is trying to sell skins, forums, shopping carts, free forums, vBulletin hosting, Blogs, budget web hosting, free PhP hosting, free forums, scrapbook printing, bulletin boards and downloads. It's a sick puppy!

Maybe changing my subdirectory from "/forum" to a word more appropriate to my market place. And a general CLEANUP of code to remove the offending words!

122 times in the code or in whats displayed?

If your talking in the code (which I thnk you are) you cant really change that. Forumhome, forumdisplay, etc are all templates it needs to call. You would have to rewrite the entire program. And that isnt where your problem is.


Here is a tool you can use to see what search engines see: Keyword Density Analyzer (http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/kwda.cgi?ti=&action=reset)

Here is the top - looks like I have work to do. Thanks for the tool link!

10 classified 2.44%
9 forum 2.2%
9 yesterday 2.2%
8 antique 1.96%
8 posts 1.96%
7 viewing 1.71%

11 2005 post 10.58%
9 yesterday post 8.65%
4 contains posts 3.85%

Until Google ads can provide a list of keywords to bypass, They are off my forum!

As to SEO, the same keyword problems certainly apply!

Give a man a fish, and he will eat dinner tonight. Teach that man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime...

Or something like that
I think it actually goes:

Give a man a fish and he will eat dinner tonight. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer for days.

I have had little trouble with getting relevant ads - although in New Zealand there are few people actually using adwords.

vbseo gives you the great relevant url.

Then along with title, meta description, an h1, and an introductory paragraph in the navbar - all mentioning the keyphrase, then most links in having the title in there... Google is left in no doubt as to what the content of the page is.

What I find is that most people dont get the consistency of the keyphrase in all the right spots, so all the other phrases are more relevant.

Simple really.

Tweaking things like what the alt tag of buttons are will help your keyword relevance and density, as well as help wth adsense targeting.

Dont get crazy and change all your alt tags to youe main keyword. Especially for images that are repeated over and over like this one that shows up for every post like the 'Quote Button" thats on every post. Or the
http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/images/brown/statusicon/user_online.gif

Those are on every post - if you replace the alt with keyword text, you might look like your keyword stuffing. Better to just delete the alt text on those.

Until Google ads can provide a list of keywords to bypass, They are off my forum!


Google does actually give a comment tool that can be used around words that you want to ignore, or highlight Section Targeting. (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371)

Tweaking things like what the alt tag of buttons are will help your keyword relevance and density, as well as help wth adsense targeting.

Dont get crazy and change all your alt tags to youe main keyword. Especially for images that are repeated over and over like this one that shows up for every post like the 'Quote Button" thats on every post. Or the
http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/images/brown/statusicon/user_online.gif

Those are on every post - if you replace the alt with keyword text, you might look like your keyword stuffing. Better to just delete the alt text on those.

There went accessibility. I guess d-links will be considered fair game as well. :(

Chris

d-links ??? Accessibility?

Description links for accessibility. Like this...


<div id="arts"><a href="/illuminations/arts.htm"><img src="/illuminations/images/html/arts_85d.jpg" height="28" width="58" alt="arts_85.jpg-5.3KB - Click to view Art Illuminations." /></a></div>
<div id="arts-d"><a href="/illuminations/dlink/arts_dlink.htm"><img src="/illuminations/images/html/arts_dlink.png" height="28" width="10" longdesc="/illuminations/ideas_dlink.htm" alt="arts_85d.jpg-2.7KB - Click to preview Illuminations accessible page" /></a></div>


The bottom one is an example of how longdesc and d-link is used in creating an accessible page.

ALT text wasn't designed to just promote a website. To do so is a disservice for 10% of the web population that has accessibility issues. It's there so those with screenreaders can "see" what's on the page -- thus the image name, it's size, and description.

Chris

Ah - yes, I understand your point.

However, I dont know that everything has to eb changed - but there are elements that are not really important. Like the button that tells if your online or not.

I saw the < H 1 > mod somewhere before, but I've lost the link.

Also wondering about making the first post in a thread a < H 2 > or < H 3 > think that would help?

back to the vBSEO topic - Saying it is simply a rewrite is false, as already stated. As for whether it is worth it, time will tell for me ( I installed it in Mid November). removing duplicate content from the SERPS, and redirects I think are showing to be beneficial to my site.

Overall, my SERP rankings are much, much, better than they were before installing. I can't say it is vBSEO that did it, but I cant say it isnt either.

Something that has changed in my forums since this, and I attribute it to vBSEO is ad clickthough ratio for adsense. the ads are more relevent throughout my threads and the percentage of clickthrough has been quite a bit higher.

I have alot more spider traffic than I did before installing as well. It will be a couple more months before I can get a good idea of what this product does for me though. Overall, however, I think it is worth it.

Well - the forums portion of your site seems to have 205 pages indexed in GOOGLE (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-42%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=site%3Awww.sportsoutlaw.com%2Fforum%2F).

that number is constantly changing right now, as tons of pages are being removed by google, and the new URL's are just now starting to show up.

pages per the API is 6,000 for the forum currently.

While this number is important to an extent in the overall scheme of things, the SERP's is what is the MOST important.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=2006+nfl+draft

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=2006+nfl+draft&FORM=QBHP

as I said, it will take a few more months to get a good picture of what this software does, as I am currently in the middle of a complete flush of URL's throughout all the search engines, and tons of duplicate content is being removed.

Another factor I am waiting to see is what happens in terms of PageRank. For the site, I am currently at 5, for the forum home page I am at 4. I lost all the internal PageRank for my forums pages due to new URL's, so what is going to happen with my overall PR is totally up in the air at this point. The next PR update is one of the things I am really anxious to see since installing vbseo.

I'm neither pro nor con mod-rewrite. It's a very subjective matter and not always the correct decision. (really, believe it or not, mod rewrite can be a negetive)

Besides, as the broken record says, vB is spidered as is just fine. Also, if dupe content is your issue, turn off the archive. Furthermore, if it's the titles and metas, edit them in the vB ACP template editor. Wait, there's more! Need <h1>'s? You can add them in the template editor too.

To rewrite or not to rewrite, that is the question.

On forums, I say no. I don't think it's scalabiltiy is practical for a general yes, but certainly a general no with vBulletin.

Database applications where you know the scale. If possible, a big yes!


P.S. I stayed in a Holiday in Express last night.

What's a Holiday Inn Express? Why is that significant? :confused:

What's a Holiday Inn Express? Why is that significant? :confused:


There's a motel called Holiday Inn Express. There is a comercial here they play for us mericans that shows people acting like experts, that aren't, but they feel so good after a nights stay there, they pull it off.

Ahhh... you posted that once at DP and I didn't understand it then either :o

One thing I noticed when I checked out this script is that this script requires either zend or the ionCube PHP Accelerator - and I know a lot of vb people out there use eaccelerator - which I believe is compatible with neither.

I would like to see more responses to people that have actually installed this. Has their # of indexed pages gone up or traffic gone up or both?

I did a google search and it seems a lot of people have vbseo installed but very few posting if it has really helped them.

I did a site:mydomain.com/forums and found that I only have 193 pages indexed. I have to add the /forums because I have more than just forums on my site. Now the forum actually has over 3000 posts on it. Seems strange that more are not indexed.

Is there something that I am missing? This is one reason I am considering vbseo

thanks for any advice

This is not something that I could or would spend $149 for. There have to be less expensive alternatives

if I could remove the copyright or place it in my links area I'd be more incline to buy this.. but to have there link on all my pages after i give 150$, screw that ! :D

They said there is an option to have no link on the pages.

you probably have to pay for it

I would like to see more responses to people that have actually installed this. Has their # of indexed pages gone up or traffic gone up or both?

I did a google search and it seems a lot of people have vbseo installed but very few posting if it has really helped them.

I did a site:mydomain.com/forums and found that I only have 193 pages indexed. I have to add the /forums because I have more than just forums on my site. Now the forum actually has over 3000 posts on it. Seems strange that more are not indexed.

Is there something that I am missing? This is one reason I am considering vbseo

thanks for any advice

You have to understand what vbseo does and what it does not do.

vBSEO has many different features, but the main part to mention here is the site issues (others include adsense targetting, google analytics integration, compressing code, ...)
vBulletin has many url's for the same content which vBSEO reduces to one url per page. Therefore, with vBSEO there will be less url's on Google for the site, but those url's will be stronger - more links into each page
vBSEO does not do onpage optimization. It gives some great tools to help you with this, but its up to you to apply. With SEO, every part is important, and without correct onpage SEO your pages are not able to be found as easily.
I therefore have a thread with onpage SEO strategies - Search Engine Optimization vBulletin 3.5 (http://forum.time2dine.co.nz/seo-vbulletin/search-engine-optimize-vbulletin-3-5-a-2460.html) - template changes, and talk regards search phrase selection.
With vBSEO, a Google site map to let Google know about new url's faster, onpage optimization, and a good number of links (and a bit of luck) sites can rank well on the search engines.
A large part of my business is helping people with the above. I have been able to get great results for clients. vBSEO or any rewrite needs to be used in conjunction with the normal SEO considerations. Then its a winner.

They said there is an option to have no link on the pages.


i belive you are wrong. at least last time I looked at the site,, you can change the copyright, but it is shown on all pages, to my understanding

There are a number of copywrite message options available - able to be set on manually on the actual php of the config file. In general the messages appear on all pages, there are a few pages that it does not show on. ie the instant message popups.

i belive you are wrong. at least last time I looked at the site,, you can change the copyright, but it is shown on all pages, to my understanding

Loco.m

Maybe I am wrong, I am just reporting what they told me on the vbseo forum.