Complaints about vbSEO and large forums...

[kat]

I just read this article about a webmaster who disabled vbSEO from his large forum because it negatively impacted his revenues and SEO...

Can some respond to what he's saying?

http://www.forumtrends.com/forum-seo...eforumscom.htm

[Keith Cohen]

I don't consider that a complaint about vBSEO and Large Forums, since CruiselineForums isn't all that large in the grand scheme of things. I think the main issue (which is still ongoing) is all the turmoil going on with Google; that was the main reason Rex wasn't seeing the results he may have been expecting.

Here's a previous thread about it: No vbSEO at Cruiselineforums?

My personal site is larger than CruiseLineForums, and I have seen some jumps, and drops, and now it's finally going up again. All due to the problems at Google.

Here's a thread I posted a while back, before I was an employee here: http://www.vbseo.com/f84/fireblades-...increase-2967/.

I'll post an update to that thread now with my most recent Google referral graph and you can see where it made a HUGE jump in the last month or so, since Google (appears, at least) to finally be getting its act together.

[Joe Ward]

Kat, here's a recently news summary I posted related to the Google BigDaddy update and what has been happening:

http://www.vbseo.com/f104/google-ack...schwartz-4852/

[Ace Shattock]

With regards to vBSEO 'slowing down' larger sites, 2.4.5 addresses an issue that could cause forums with over 1 million posts to load the server more than usual.

[Juan Muriente]

SEO is like going on a strict diet - it requires commitment... and patience.

People have different "metabolisms"... websites have different indexing cycles. For some, it's an overnight success, for others, the process WILL take some time.

Two great websites have removed vBSEO too soon IMO: that's Cruiseline Forums (Rex) and SportsOutlaw (Mike). I'm hoping that eventually they reconsider joining us as as things get more stable with Google.

[T2DMan]

Cruiseline forums was given lots of free advice on additional things that he needed to do to get the best rankings on google. He chose not to take that advice.

Linuxforums.org on the other hand took the next step after seo, and got my help with template and other seo changes. They have achieved very good growth subsequent to the excellant growth that they achieved solely with vbseo. Mark was bouncing

12 May 2006

(06:18:23) Mark-Linux: Linux Forums' traffic is seriously growing...
(06:18:32) Michael/T2DMan: yippeeeeeeee!!!!!!
(06:18:44) Michael/T2DMan: why?
(06:18:51) Michael/T2DMan: how is the se traffic specifically?
(06:18:54) Mark-Linux: Google is sending loads of people...
(06:19:00) Mark-Linux: LOADS
(06:19:03) Mark-Linux: I love you!

I hope Mark wont mind me quoting him. Since he has got a traffic graph on the front page of vbseo.com pre my help.

Pick some threads that Google has cached, and check out where they rank on Google for their title. I tried two random threads that were cached, and each was the top for of Google for the text of its title. Now thats not bad!!!!!

[briansol]

Right-o, Michael.

As I just posted in a thread helping Metal-R.us, I mentioned that changing the URL is one of the hardest things to do effectively (which is where vBSEO comes in), but in the long run, it is merely 10% or maybe even less of the TOTAL SEO PACKAGE.

vBulletin sucks. No, really, it does. The template is EXTREMELY unfriendly to search engines, and in general is one big bloat.

Hopefully, that will all change soon for us vBSEO customers.

I have one more customer website to build, and then i'm starting work on the vBSEO Optimized Template for vB 3.5.4

No more tables for layout, except where necessary
No more useless markup.
0 inline attributes
no more pt for font sizes on screen media
Better Class Names/ID's
Semantic markup where applicable
Image replacement techniques for logos/headers, etc
less javascript, more css


The down side to this, is that if you have a custom theme, it won't work. It will need to be re-coded. And chances are it will take some time before any template guys get on it.

But, for a nice CLEAN board, I'll have something together hopefully late June at least for a beta.

[rob]

With reference to the first post in this thread....

I found that article highly annoying to the point I had to bite my tongue..... I gave in and replied.

[MentaL]

Everyone is fully aware of the extra load that VBSEO is going to add. Originally when i started VBSEO i was using a Dual XEON 2.8GHZ, from there the load hit 50, then we upgraded to a Dual Opteron, now the opteron load was never above 5 and now, since then (as of today) we upgraded to a Dual/Dual (x4 CPU) opteron and you know what? VBSEO has not ran as smooth as it has now.

[Joe Ward]

With reference to the first post in this thread....

I found that article highly annoying to the point I had to bite my tongue..... I gave in and replied.

You forget to tell them about the demo Rob. Just kidding.

[rob]

Actually, it's bloody annoying to see this chap saying all this. The on-page SEO of cruiseline forums was crap. Myself and TD both tried to help the guy and for whatever reason our recommendations were not implemented, so he has no one to blame but himself.

You can have the prettiest, content relevant URL's google has ever seen, but if your onpage SEO is lame, then how can you expect miricles?

The saddest thing is, the cruiseline forum could totally blow his competitors outta the water on loads of google searches. His site needs some attention, sure.... but once done his site's SEO would leave him having to upgrade his server.

Some people are never happy, unless they are unhappy.

[T2DMan]

vBulletin sucks. No, really, it does. The template is EXTREMELY unfriendly to search engines, and in general is one big bloat.

I totally agree that vBulletin pages are bloated, and that does make it harder to get good rankings.

It will be interesting to see what you come up with.

Personally, I don't mind the bloat:
- you tell google where your content is with an h1 then opening paragraph using your search phrase in that opening paragraph
- I make up for the bloat by having high PR and additional links

But once you make a better template, then I will certainly be all ears. I just dont want to lose any functionality.

One thing that I have started doing with some "sales" threads, is to exclude some items like post reply, and some navbar links etc so that there is less html.

[briansol]

I plan on removing 0 functionality. the only thing I plan to change is the dhtml mousover/drop downs into CSS :hover untis. So, you'll loose the flashy opening sequence, but that's about it. Not a bad trade-off for 20kb less code (between the js and hidden div), and more accessible code at that.

I've already started some enhancements on my CTforums page in the header and footer.

the h1 is dynamic to the forum and/or thread name, the nav bar is a list instead of a table, and the footer is also a list instead of a table.

Just threw those up real quick before I ran into the shtml snags. You'll notice I have no quick links drop down... i removed it as I didn't have time to recode it.

As soon as i figure out somce lincensing issues for a dev board, i'm going to get started. I'm done with that client site i mentioned, minus the skin/look&feel, so I should be done with that site this week hopefully.

[rex_b]

Thank you to the staff that took the professional route in this thread. I did ont have any complaints and stated everything I wrote in that blog honestly. That's what I do and at the time that is what I experienced.

I've come to the conclusion now that because we were interlinking within our network and using DP Co-Op at one time that the domain was flagged for spamming/link network exchanging. Which really angers me, ugh. I even have an email from MSN saying so.

But I digress, we are going to be making alot of changes in the coming 2 weeks and might re-include vBSeo, but that decisions has not been made yet.

Thanks to Joe and all the staff here for their help.

[briansol]

do it rex. you won't regret it.

stick to it. don't change stuff. let it take its course.... and then reap the benefits.

a picture says 1000 words? vbseo works. i'm living proof. and so is my wallet (i'm actually starting to get worried about the IRS now! lol)