Questions and Comments

Hopefully, I can be grandfathered into the deal where I get the free custom-url upgrade - seen now at this link: http://www.vbseo.com/purchase/

I have a couple of questions.

The first has to do with the encoding version. I currently use eaccellerator - which has replaced Turk MMCache and I'm pretty stinking happy with it.

Buying VBSeo means that I'm going to have to ditch the e. As I ponder whether to use ionCube or Zend, I'm wondering - am I locked into one or the other? Or can I make a switch a couple of weeks down the road at no additional cost? What if I want to switch back and forth to compare the differences?

Also, along the same line of thought - do you have a recommendation as to which you prefer? IonCube or Zend? Or perhaps you have a link to a comparison, since I haven't been able to find much. IonCube seems to be pretty young.

My next question is in regards to a test environment. I have not released my forum to the public yet, and I plan to in the very near future. I had originally set up a forum on one server at http://forums... and set up my new environment at http://forums1... Once I have all my changes copied from talk to talk1, I'm planning on reversing the names - so that http://forums will be my production environment and http://forums1... will be my test environment. Clear as mud, right? Anyhow, I want to verify my assumptions - that I do have the ability to rename my server prior to release, and that I get to have a live and working test environment so I can test new plugins or code changes before I stick them on a live server.

My third question is in regards to a rumor that if your servers go down, my server goes down. That leaves my forum wide open a DDOS attack that I have no means to protect. Is this rumor true? What assurance can you give me that you have 100% uptime (if it is true)?

And lastly, I have a comment. I'm one of those computer programmer/web developer/techno nerds that likes to do things his own way. I was wavering between whether or not to go through the trouble of rewriting my url's, and came to the conclusion that doing so prior to releasing my forum was the right thing to do. I agree with many so-called experts that rewriting is not a necessary thing, but I also am of the mindset that it helps, makes the url's easier for my end users to follow, and it is one of the first steps I would take if I was having indexing problems. Facing the task of developing this myself - I know that there are many landmines to watch out for and a lot of testing that needs to get done. Even if I could do it in a week, the price of your software is well worth it compared to the cost of my time. I hate to add an additional cost to my project at this time, but I'd also hate to waste another month before release, or worse yet - make major changes to my system post go-live.

A friendly bump.

There are currently zend and ioncube encoded versions and i never heard any rumours that another version is on the production line. You can download the test.php file from here to choosewhich version will fit your needs.

As far as i know you can rename your board. It is up to your choice but you cannot run vbseo on more then 1 live board. If you need to run more then one instance on a live board you need to purchase another license.

My third question is in regards to a rumor that if your servers go down, my server goes down. That leaves my forum wide open a DDOS attack that I have no means to protect. Is this rumor true? What assurance can you give me that you have 100% uptime (if it is true)?

It happened in past. But it only happens if you are unlicensed so that your license key will not be included in your files. I didn't face any problems when vbseo was down.

Sounds good to me. I'm a little worried about not having a test server off the bat since I'm going to be cheap and just buy one license, but if I run into issues, the cost of this software really does make sense for me timewise to pick up another copy.

Thanks for the help.

Hi and welcome to vBSEO,

Buying VBSeo means that I'm going to have to ditch the e. As I ponder whether to use ionCube or Zend, I'm wondering - am I locked into one or the other? Or can I make a switch a couple of weeks down the road at no additional cost? What if I want to switch back and forth to compare the differences?

You have both versions available via the download area. You can test, change, and go back to either version at will

Also, along the same line of thought - do you have a recommendation as to which you prefer? IonCube or Zend? Or perhaps you have a link to a comparison, since I haven't been able to find much. IonCube seems to be pretty young.

Both, the ionCube and Zend version perform just as well. We are currently using Zend (on vBSEO.com) but have used ionCube in the past and plan to use alternate both. Note: The biggest forum running vBSEO (with up to 4.5K concurrent users) is using the ionCube version.

My next question is in regards to a test environment. I have not released my forum to the public yet, and I plan to in the very near future. I had originally set up a forum on one server at http://forums... and set up my new environment at http://forums1... Once I have all my changes copied from talk to talk1, I'm planning on reversing the names - so that http://forums will be my production environment and http://forums1... will be my test environment. Clear as mud, right? Anyhow, I want to verify my assumptions - that I do have the ability to rename my server prior to release, and that I get to have a live and working test environment so I can test new plugins or code changes before I stick them on a live server.

Absolutely. You can run a live version of vBSEO and an 'unregistered' instance for test purposes. If you prefer to have your test instance registered (so that it doesn't contact our server), just PM any of the team members and they will be happy to add it to the database.

My third question is in regards to a rumor that if your servers go down, my server goes down. That leaves my forum wide open a DDOS attack that I have no means to protect. Is this rumor true? What assurance can you give me that you have 100% uptime (if it is true)?

Once your license key is stored on your database, your server will not contact Crawlability's server. We've implemented an 'unregistered' notice at the footer to expressly notify the user when his instance is 1) not registered and 2) is attempting to contact our server.

And lastly, I have a comment. I'm one of those computer programmer/web developer/techno nerds that likes to do things his own way. I was wavering between whether or not to go through the trouble of rewriting my url's, and came to the conclusion that doing so prior to releasing my forum was the right thing to do. I agree with many so-called experts that rewriting is not a necessary thing, but I also am of the mindset that it helps, makes the url's easier for my end users to follow, and it is one of the first steps I would take if I was having indexing problems. Facing the task of developing this myself - I know that there are many landmines to watch out for and a lot of testing that needs to get done. Even if I could do it in a week, the price of your software is well worth it compared to the cost of my time. I hate to add an additional cost to my project at this time, but I'd also hate to waste another month before release, or worse yet - make major changes to my system post go-live.

I completely agree. We are constantly improving and evolving the product. It's not just a URL rewrite solution... it goes deeper into many other aspects that help improve your on-page SEO. Of course, you might already know that true SEO requires a comprehensive approach that includes other elements such as link building, content generation, etc., etc.

Once again, welcome

I believe that you can run eAccelerator as a module under Zend. I run both at the same time.

I'm not geeky enough to give a 100% answer, I pay people to do this for me.

Originally Posted by roscoe36

I'm not geeky enough to give a 100% answer, I pay people to do this for me.

Hmph. In doing research, I've found that both ionCube and eAccelerator have problems associated with heavy traffic. I haven't experienced any myself eith eAcc, but it was enough that I'm going to give the Zend Platform a good trial run this month. The whole point of having a caching platform is to be able to handle heavy peak loads for me, so it makes sense to go with Zend.

It costs a pretty penny, but if I ever do get really high traffic levels, I don't want to blow it by having a sub-standard infrastructure in place. We'll see if I feel that way once it comes time to spend the dough though .