Already doing fine... will vBSEO really help?

Hi all,

I've heard of vBSEO for a long time but have never given it any chance as I always used to preach that vBulletin had pretty good SEO out-of-the-box. And while I still believe that, I'm more open to the possibility now that vBSEO can dramatically improve on that.

I own a number of vB liceneses, running around a dozen forums. My largest site is PokerForums.org at 175,000+ posts.

Now, I had considered buying vBSEO a few hours ago to use in conjunction to vBadvanced on Starcraft2.net since vBadvanced is a nightmare when it comes to SEO. Then I felt that if I bought one license, why not buy two?

I've read through a lot of the user reviews, as well as reviews for vBSEO on other sites, and for the most part, people have great things to say about it. However, my concern is that vBSEO won't make much difference to my site.

I know absolutely nothing about SEO, nor am I trying to proclaim that the following results are Godly or anything, but I'm wondering if my site is already 'naturally' SEO'd pretty well and that vBSEO might have no benefit to it, or may even make it worse:

(Taken from MarketLeap)

Google: 39,500
MSN: 201
Yahoo/Fast/Altavista: 107,498

Now, one of my competitors actually uses vBSEO, and has roughly twice as many members and posts as I do, yet his numbers with vBSEO are half of mine (with the exception of MSN).

I'm also consistently in the top 3 on Google for "Poker Forums".

So, I'm indeed curious as to what you guys think. Would vBSEO benefit me at all? Why are my competitors numbers so much lower than mine even though his forum numbers are higher?

Thanks!

Much of the web's content (provided it is made publically accessible) is indexable.

HOWEVER - Content Management systems in general, and particularly vBulletin, are not *optimized* for search engines.

While you may be doing well by building good content, keeping your forum active, and building links - vBSEO will provide the next step.

You may have heard a lot about the idea of CRUs --> Content Relevant URLs. While these are extremely beneficial, many users focus on the keywords that are (optionally) included in the URLs, and do not get to find out about the true benefit: link consistency.

Here is a thread you might want to check out to find out a little bit more about that particular topic:
Pin the Tail on the SEO Donkey (with Link Consensus)!

To make a long story short, you can definitely benefit from having your forums vBSEO-enabled.

Recommendation:
While I expect you will eventually wonder why you waited so long to optimize all of your forums with vBSEO, IF you are a bit hesitant, your best bet right now is to choose 1 of your mid-level forums now and get started with vBSEO.

After that experience, you'll have enough insights into what vBSEO will do to know that you'll want to continue with the rest.

Welcome aboard. I recommending getting started asap since SEO is a time consuming process, and everyday counts.

Thanks for the quick reply Joe. I think I will indeed do that, and buy a license or two, running them on Starcraft2.net and one of my "mid-forums".. MMAForums.net would make a perfect candidate.

It will also make a nice post series for my blog.. I'm going to track their progress

On a side note/suggestion: you guys should add more tiers for the discount on licenses.. There are only 3 tiers now, but it'd be nice if you added 1 or 2 more.. If I end up liking vBSEO and wish to purchase 12 licenses, for example, it'd be nice to get a better discount than just $20

Just to touch directly on this question:

Originally Posted by tylercruz

Why are my competitors numbers so much lower than mine even though his forum numbers are higher?

vBSEO fixes vBulletin's problem of having multiple URLs that point to the same content, so you will have less URLs overall. But there's a better explanation on the thread Joe linked above.

Originally Posted by tylercruz

On a side note/suggestion: you guys should add more tiers for the discount on licenses.. There are only 3 tiers now, but it'd be nice if you added 1 or 2 more.. If I end up liking vBSEO and wish to purchase 12 licenses, for example, it'd be nice to get a better discount than just $20

If you decide to buy a large block of licenses at once, please PM me and I'll see what I can do for you.

Ack!

I just purchased two licenses, and after paying each time, when I click the return to Crawlability button, I just get a blank (white) page. And I haven't received any e-mail confirmations of payment (at least not yet.. it's only been 5 minutes)..

I tried to post this in the support forums, but it says I must first be a paying customer (lol..)

Both payments came from twcruz@hotmail.com via PayPal so you can check...

Hi Tyler,

I can take a look for you - please PM me your Paypal receipt number and the Domains you purchased for.

Welcome aboard.