Multiple Forums

[geoff778]

I'm setting up a forum for our area.
I have four websites for local communities.

They have common content so I can use 1 vBulletin license and have identical forums using one db. (I've checked).

The question is do I want to do this from an SEO point of view.

It would look better for the users but would it be seen as duplicate content by the Search Engines?

I need only one vBulletin licence but looking at your TOS I'll need multiple VBSEO licences?

Any information would help in some important initial decisions.

Thanks
Geoff

[Keith Cohen]

Each installation of vBulletin only supports one "Forum URL" as defined in your vBulletin AdminCP. That is the URL that vBSEO will use to rewrite all of your links, so you will not be able to have multiple domains pointing to the same data. (Nor is that even suggested for SEO purposes, as you mentioned.)

[geoff778]

I understand from vBulletin that I can have multiple installations on different domains sharing the same db with 1 license.

They give an example of what I want to do on their site. I have checked that this is okay.
Multiple domains and the license agreement - vBulletin Community Forum

On the condition that no forums are hidden and that the forum view is the same for each website

So I would have 4 individual admincps

Geoff

[Joe Ward]

Fred - that would not be a good setup for SEO purposes.

[geoff778]

I now have to weigh up the consequences of this from an SEO point of view.

How bad would this be?

Against - some serious local rivalry and hosting the forum on town A's website and sending visitors from towns B,C & D to town A's website.

I was hoping for decent SE rankings as we get a lot of tourists to the area who would find us via Google, Yahoo etc

Thanks Geoff

[Keith Cohen]

I understand from vBulletin that I can have multiple installations on different domains sharing the same db with 1 license.

They give an example of what I want to do on their site. I have checked that this is okay.
Multiple domains and the license agreement - vBulletin Community Forum

On the condition that no forums are hidden and that the forum view is the same for each website

So I would have 4 individual admincps

Geoff

If they share one DB, then they share one set of settings, so there would only be one Forum URL. If you have mutiple copies of vBulletin all with separate AdminCPs and AdminCP settings, then that would require multiple vBulletin licenses.

[geoff778]

Then how do the three forums in the example link I gave work?

[Keith Cohen]

Because they all point to one installation of vBulletin, with one Forum URL defined. The Forum URL doesn't come into play a lot in default vBulletin, so all links can be made relative, and they will all use the current domain name that the user used to reach that page. With vBSEO, it doesn't work that way, since vBSEO uses the defined Forum URL to build links.

Plus, you will be killing your ranking by having the same exact content accessible under multiple URLs. That's one of the primary goals of vBSEO, to make vBulletin only have one URL for each piece of content, instead of multiple like in default vBulletin.

[geoff778]

Thanks Keith,

Then I have no choice but to have one website with the forum on it.

It would have been so much better for visitors the other way.

I guess I could open a new window from the forum link so vistors didn't leave the first site.

Thanks again
Geoff

[briansol]

Given your situation, I would buy a 5th domain and point the previous 4 to the new one, called "XYZ network"

Ie, if you had

dallasracing.com
and
forthworthcars.com

I would 301 those domains to
DFWracecars.com or something like that.

more specific, on DFWracecars, you could have seperate forums for each city, and then you could send via 301
dallasracing.com to
DFWracecars.com/f1/
and
fortworthcars.com to
DFWracecars.com/f2/

where f1 and f2 are your cat re-writes, as exemplified on vbseo.

[geoff778]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Brian.

An excellent compromise.

I will try to come up with a good name and take your advice.

Best Wishes
Geoff