vB 3 or vB 4 with vbseo

I have one last question before making a decision here. I think many would like to know your opinions on this and it will affect my decision here before I buy. It appears that vB 4 might be getting a little more stable, at least the forum is.

I have a forum that has been around for a bunch of years and I don't know whether to upgrade.

1) If I do, can I assume the URLs will remain the same from vB 3 to vB 4?

2) What have you guys seen from results using VB4? I have heard that ranking and use results can be worse than they were with vB 3. Have you guys seen anything like this to this effect? SERPs?

3) What has been the experience you guys have had with vB 4 so far? It looks like you upgraded to 4.0.5 and most of the features are the same. If you had to, would you recommend or not recommend that a forum move to vB 4 and use vB seo?

Hi Mick,

I have to say that vB4 is indeed getting a lot more stable recently, and they are starting to add features that people are looking for.

1) Yes vBSEO keeps all of the URL settings and formats between versions so all of your previous URL's will remain the same. You shouldn't need to backup as vBSEO does that automatically but vB3-4 is a big jump so I always recommend creating an XML backup from your vbseocp just in case something goes wrong.

2) A Number of customers are really starting to see great results with vB4 + vBSEO3.5, to begin with you are expected to see some drops because even though all of the URL's will be the same the actual HTML code will all of changed and Google has to take some time to re-index your site and determine it hasn't suddenly changed topic etc... For this reason you do tend to see a bigger drop than you normally see during a normal re-index but once google has determined the site is still acceptable this is when you start to see the improvements.

The other thing that is important is that you put all of the enhancements you had in vB3 onto your site on vB4... A lot of people ourselves included missed some vital steps while upgrading like re-adding the Relevant replacements etc and they experienced further drops, once we then completed these changes the results were seen shortly after.

Thank you Ceri. I think we will make the jump to vB 4 instead of starting to use our VB 3 forum with vbseo and then moving to VB 4.

What kind of assistance do you provide with regard to setup of the system? I don't mean installation - I have done a lot of stuff before with vBulletin, php, mysql, etc. I just don't know what the best settings are for our site. I looked around and saw that default VBSEO includes the archive on and in the sitemap too but then I read it shouldn't be included. I also see a whole bunch of other settings but don't know whether they should be on or off.

In addition, I know that the URL structure is very important and I don't know if there are different types people use, what the best one is, etc. Making sure that it is correct is important and it's different with every board. Paying $150 is a lot of money for the product so I'm hoping that front line setup might come with it, as you can understand, nothing too intensive but just setup out of the box right first time out.

Thank you.

Hey again...

The closest thing to what you are asking is actually our vBSEO - Installation Service and also our Critique Forum...

The installation service you will notice doesn't just include the basic install but also includes...

1. Default configuration of vBSEO options
2. Basic installation troubleshooting
3. Moving .htaccess commands to httpd.conf (for dedicated servers only; requires extra access permissions)
4. Basic configuration of mod_rewrite or ISAPI_Rewrite (where possible only)

S

• et-up and configuration of the vBSEO Sitemap Generator
• Set-up of Relevant Replacements on your forum.
• URL Canonicalization (URL Consolidation) settings including:
  
  1. Activating vBSEO's Homepage Aliases feature - Will 301 redirect homepage URL variations (i.e /index.php, /index.php?) to the root directory.
  2. Setting .htaccess (or httpd.conf) rules to 301 redirect all non-www type URLs to www type URLs or vice-versa.
• Basic forum setting check including:
  
  1. Removing thread pruning so that all threads are visible to Search Engines.
  2. Removal of "Powered by vBulletin" text from your title tags.

The critique forum also allows you to submit your site for critique, our staff members and also customer will then review your site and give you further tips that you can implement... Mixing the two services together would be the closest thing to what your looking for.

Ceri

Ceri -

I appreciate the answers but I'll be honest with you. Most of us don't need 90% of the installation service. We can install it just fine. The sitemap installation is a piece of cake. Removal of powered by Vbulletin - the novice can even do that. But what we can't do is know the most fundamental item you're selling us with the product - changing the URL structure that is appropriate to our site. I think it's something you have to get right the first time and discussing it in the forum doesn't seem to be the best place, does it?

$150 is a lot without the obvious basic support, not handholding. But if it's going to cost almost $300, that's the price of another vBulletion 4 suite itself... that's a lot to think about. Just sharing my thoughts.

Setting and configuring the URL formats etc is very simple. There are already 5 pre-set's created that are all correctly formated and it is simply then just a matter of personal opinion which one you choose to use. There is no evidence which of the URL's are more important than the others. Further customizations to your URL's again are very straight forward within our control panel, any help or assistance you require with this we are here to help and give advice.

Your licence comes with a full years technical support and the forums and here for all other general discussions, including the Critique threads.

I didn't say you should get the installation service, I am just advising you it is the closest thing we have to what you are asking for.

Please consider that most users do not require to do anything more to vBSEO once installed, the whole idea of vBSEO is that it automates 90% of things. If you do wish to optimize it further to get the fullest potential out of it you can and again we are more than happy to support you in doing so either via the tickets for technical questions or the forums for more general product/SEO queries.

Ceri

Thanks Ceri. I just realized that vbseo is a $270 purchase for us as we can't use it with other branding on our pro forum. Will have to give this decision more thought. Thanks for sharing your opinions.