my fiat stilo forum

[lawstudent]

Hi,

I want to keep track of my forum here,
but I am not sure what info is interesting and what is not.

Also, how do I keep track of search words and all that..... is there a site or software that can give me all feedback on my site?

Some back ground, this site is a few sites all joined together, some pretty famous and a few years old like


for now

SITE :

Currently active users: 4 (1 members and 3 guests)
Threads: 1,026, Posts: 8,067, Members: 929, Active Members: 916 (not true)
Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 14


GOOGLE:
PR - 0
Search for "fiat stilo" ---> no results
Search for "fs - o c. net" Results 1 - 9 of 9
site:fs-oc.net Results 1 - 10 of about 3,470

Others:
Search for "fs - oc. net" result 34
inlinks 136 (but mostly from my own site and 2 others)
msn site:fs-oc.net Results 1-10 of 198 results

[lawstudent]

3 days result

Currently active users: 6 (2 members and 4 guests)
Threads: 1,041, Posts: 8,199, Members: 931, Active Members: 918
Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 14


GOOGLE:
PR - 1 (+)
Search for "fiat stilo forum" ---> no results
Search for "fs - oc . net" Results 1 - 10 of about 3,960 (+3.951)
site:fs-oc.net Results 1 - 10 of about 3,540 (+80)

Others:
msn site:fs-oc.net Results 1-10 of 229 results (+)

[lawstudent]

Currently active users: 5 (3 members and 2 guests)
Threads: 1,050, Posts: 8,279, Members: 934, Active Members: 921
Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 15


GOOGLE:
PR - 1
Search for "fiat stilo forum" ---> 1st page number 4
Search for "fs - oc . net" Results 1 - 10 of about 4,700 (+740)
site:fs-oc.net Results 1 - 10 of about 4.240 (+700)

Others:
msn site:fs-oc.net Results 1-10 of 229 results

Number of pages crawled per day
Maximum 1,273 Average 135 Minimum 1


Number of kilobytes downloaded per day
Maximum 8,691 Average 1,447 Minimum 0


Time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds)
Maximum 2,989 Average 785 Minimum 78


long tail

[lawstudent]

UPDATE!

Currently active users: 6 (1 members and 5 guests)
Threads: 976, Posts: 7,739, Members: 950, Active Members: 937
Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 14


GOOGLE:
PR - 1
Search for "fiat stilo forum" ---> 1st page number 4
Search for "fs - oc . net" Results 1 - 10 of about 2,030 (-50%)

[redhawk89]

how much are you looking for?

[lawstudent]

UPDATE!

Currently active users: 3 (1 members and 2 guests)
Threads: 1,040, Posts: 8,317, Members: 1,003, Active Members: 288
Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 45


GOOGLE:
PR - 1
Search for "fiat stilo forum" ---> 1st page number 6 (5 is vbseo with this thread??)
Search for "fs - oc . net" Results 1 - 10 of about 1.750 (-20%)

[lawstudent]

Hi,

Since the day I removed VBseo and installed zoints, on the 14th... my google analytics show me this increase

35,750.00% (within 2 weeks of moving to zoints)

On my other sites with vbseo I get very different results, see a picture here...
What exactly is vbseo doing different from zoints? How come I get such an amazing difference RIGHT after I moved to zoints on the one site?

[lawstudent]

Right,

So no one can explain the difference between the two packages,

I have 3 forums, 2 with vbseo that get very small results, one use to have vbseo and since I removed it got really busy....

Does this mean I do something wrong with the setup of the others? Did I miss something, did I do something bad or silly?

Or is zoints a better alternative?

see above image and this one to see the difference, again THIS ONLY HAPPENED AFTER changing to zoints.



What is the difference?

[Joe Ward]

Keep in mind that a change over is going to draw short-term attention. If that results in traffic, that's great!

One obvious difficult in the comparisons is that your forums are different topics. Auto related forums are some of the most trafficked forums on the Web.

Each of the 3 forums you are comparing are in different niches. Each has somewhat different configuration. Each apparently has some SEO related issues that should be corrected particularly externalaw and now certainly fs-oc.co.uk.

I would have to review each of your critique threads to see which recommendations we offered, and which you added. Also, we would need a full description of the changes you have made to each site.

We need to establish a baseline, before we can really zero in on ways for you to improve. Too many changes too fast, make it very difficult to analyze. With SEO, you're going to need time and stability. Changing from our solution to a hack is really not a good idea.

As a starting point, please check out your previous critiques. Make sure that you have implemented each of the suggestions. I recommend that you start with externalaw, as it seems to have the most easy to spot issues.

[lawstudent]

Well,

I did add all suggestions on all forums, did I miss some? Which once?
I am not sure what you mean Hack, vbseo is a hack right?

I think the result is the best indication of progress, and right now it seems that my car related forum using zoints is doing very well.. with vbseo it did not... so the topic is much less the indication here, as the forum started doing well AFTER I switched to zoints.

Just curious as to why and how...

Also, how is zoints a hack and vbseo not?

Is there a refund policy? How does it work if your product does not deliver the result people think it will? What if a mere hack outperforms your expensive product, ...

The more I type the more I worry... vbull 4 coming out etc etc, ...

So Is there a refund policy?

[Joe Ward]

Hi Mike,

Thank-you for addressing your concerns. The good news is that I think you're not so far from getting back on track. A cursory look at your forums showed up a few areas for improvement, but nothing too difficult to achieve.

You may have missed a few of the earlier suggestions, or they may not have been mentioned in one of your evaluations. Please re-open new critique requests for each of your forums, in separate threads, so that we can re-visit them individually. You'll probably discover that most of the tips are relatively minor tweaks, but they can have significant impact.

I'm glad that your other forum seems to be doing well with Zoints, although I know you should have definitely stayed with vBSEO. If the forum was under performing, then the approach would have been to try to identify the factor causing you to not see the growth rate you anticipated.

I strongly encourage you to do a few optimizations as suggested and then stick with it. Try not to even think of changing anything significant for 120 days. I really cannot emphasize this enough for all customers. SEO requires a lot of patience. We are very fortunate today that the index is updated more readily. A few years ago, we sometimes had to wait 30+ days to see the results (good or bad) of any changes we made.

Sometimes in our enthusiasm for immediate results, we start second guessing ourselves and changing things before they've had time to take effect. I've been in that situation and fell into that trap myself several times during my earliest attempts at SEO.

Ideally, as a new vBSEO customer, we direct customers to install vBSEO, get optimization tips, and then set it and forget it. Basically give it time to re-index and take effect. Now, during that time you can start to focus on other important things for your community be it creating great content, building links, or other general marketing or administrative tasks that go into building a great forum.

vBSEO is distinguished as a full solution because it's a high quality plugin that has achieved full link consensus, is constantly being reviewed and assessed by the team for improvements in the form of updates and new features as needed, and has a full time team ready to provide full support almost around the clock.

I was not being dismissive when I referred to Zoints as a hack. That terminology is generally used to describe modifications that are offered into the community, usually by a single developer, and (as such) are less likely to be a full scale application, robustly tested, or frequently supported, etc. So while hacks are extremely important in what they do, we define solution as the full package that goes beyond simply distributing some code.

Zoints falls into this category since it is not adequately supported, has some issues with the linking structure, and was created quickly, with the primary goal of having a freebie intended to attract interest for the Zoints social network. vBSEO was still the most talked about plugin at that time, so it probably seemed like a good way to get some exposure. While the Zoint's social network looked cool getting started, it seemed to fizzle, probably due to lack of interest by most forum admins, since it essentially placed their hard earned users up for grabs (IMO).

BTW - Our records indicate that you just got started in April of this year, and switched one of your licenses to a new forum in May. That's only a couple months and certainly not enough in an SEO timeline. For the two forums you have vBSEO-enabled now, please follow the tips closely that you receive in your next critiques. But after that, lock it in, and move forward with building great content.

Note: We provide refunds only when vBSEO cannot be installed on your forum, after the vBSEO Team has been given an opportunity to troubleshoot. Of course, this happens very infrequently, but there are exceptions such as with some smaller hosting companies who will not enable mod_rewrite, etc.

[lawstudent]

Thank you for the long reply,

The refund question was just to find out how strongly you stand by your product, most companies offer a NOT HAPPY MONEY BACK guarantee as they are convinced there is no better alternative out there.

I will stick with vbseo of course, and hope my post are not read as an attack on your product but rather as a personal question mark with my own capability of using your product.

I am impatient, but have to admit that the immediate result of zoints took me by surprise.

The real problem is easy,

I just started yet another forum, my final forum... it is based on religion. I have invested enough in it in regards to unique articles and paid posters... the forum will go live next week... and I am very "unsure" what to do in regards to your product, do I need it or not..

is it worth spending $450 on your company if there is little support and little result, I rather have your company tell me day in day out for a few days to get my stuff together and get it done right...

Or, do I go with vb4, zoints or the local hacks on vbull.org I am at a loss now!

[Joe Ward]

Hi Mike,

A refund policy, beyond what we offer, has never really been needed. We do occasionally get cases where a host refuses to enable mod_rewrite, but it doesn't happen very often at all. Yet, the worst thing for a customer's SEO would be to get started and back out too soon. That can cause a disruption in SEO, and I'm going to add an item to my task list to review our documentation to make sure that we explain that better.

You're well on your way to building a forum network, so I can understand you want to make sure your investment is put in the right place.

If you decide to run vBSEO on your religion forum, I suggest that you start right out of the gate with a critique. Marco does a great job in critiques pointing out some common mistakes, tweak opportunities, and some vBSEO features not being taken advantage of. I can also do a follow-up review for you with some additional ideas.

That way, you'll begin the forum's life cycle with as good a starting point as possible. Note: There are consultants available in the community that can help you with all of the tweaks suggested if you have any trouble with them, or simply want to delegate them to help speed up your launch.

We definitely need to get your follow-up reviews completed for your 2 vBSEO powered forums. Let's identify and fix all the stuff that is quite easy to fix, to maximize the results you can expect.

If you are undecided about vBSEO for the new forum, I would suggest starting with no rewrite for now. You certainly should not be using any of the free hacks after investing so much into it. vB4 will contain only a basic URL rewriting implementation. It is very important because it's creating greater awareness about the need for SEO. When users begin search for more info, they will naturally be directed to vBSEO. SEO is just too vital to a forum's success to trust to anyone other than a team dedicated to getting it right year after year.

Don't stress about it. You have some time to make your decision. Even if you launch the new forum with no SEO, vBSEO will quickly 301 redirect the content and send out the full list of updates in our sitemap, if you choose to add it later. Since content is usually less on a new forum, the process can proceed even more rapidly than normal.

Let's start by getting your first two forums optimized. That will give you a repeatable plan of action for your latest one.