Why buy vB SEO?

What are the top 5 features of vBSEO in terms of bringing search engine traffic to a site.

Serious question as I am now using it on one site and trying to decide whether to buy 2 more copies. I know it is very hard to create any kind of experiment to prove it is better than just doing certain things on your own.

So please, your Top 5 List.....

The full package of all features delivers the maximum SEO value, but 3 of my personal favorite features that add a lot of SEO value are:

• Link Consensus and Increased Link Value achieved via our "URL Rewrites"
• Relevant Replacements
• Replace showpost links with Permalinks

Joe, thanks, can you tell me what the second two do?

Relevant Replacements helps get the information from the posts closer to the top of the page so it is easier for the search engines to find it.

The replacing the showpost links helps cut down on duplicate content because vbulletin right now has showthread and showposts, where each post in the showthread shows on the showpost. The replacement will add an anchor link to only take it to the showthread page, right where that post is.

Hopefully I did not confuse you with the second answer

Michael, that is the Forum Permalinks section in the CP? WHich of those 4 Permalink options do you take then?

And I don't quite understand RR's. Can you give me some examples and what the benefit would be please?

Originally Posted by len backus

Michael, that is the Forum Permalinks section in the CP? WHich of those 4 Permalink options do you take then?

And I don't quite understand RR's. Can you give me some examples and what the benefit would be please?

Replace post number link with Permalink
Will replace individual showpost links with the "Permalink" link. Note: Posts will no longer be accessible individually.

Posts will no longer be accessible individually.

How are they accessible normally and what is meant by individually?

And a relevant replacement example please.

There are showthread pages (includes all posts in the thread) and showpost pages (showing only individual posts, not the full thread).

Since posts are already displayed on the thread page, there is duplication by creating individual showpost pages.

This drastically increases the # of pages the search engines must crawl, without adding any new unique content.

This is why I personally advise removing them altogether to focus on unique content and boosting crawling efficiency dramatically.

I recommend replacing the showpost links with the Permalinks (a vBSEO option).

Also see:
[How to] Setup Relevant Replacements with vBSEO

When I just now selected Replace post number link with Permalink, I hit save, came back, looked and the drop down had Do not add permalink indicator in postbit showing. DOes that mean my selection was rejected?

Joe, I also skimmed your article and see that several who spent 10 times more effort than I, didn't get it to work. Is your article up to date and workable?

And I have removed posts from my maps.

Thanks

Originally Posted by len backus

Joe, I also skimmed your article and see that several who spent 10 times more effort than I, didn't get it to work. Is your article up to date and workable?

Len,

The issues that were experienced by people in that thread were caused by Joe's posts parsing HTML, so what he copied/pasted came out as true HTML and some things were missed.

The post has since been corrected and following it should be easy as pie.

I love pie as you could tell by looking at me!

I saw a reference to H1, H2, etc. tags. Where do they go?

H1 is the main heading of the page, search engines look for those to see what is important on the page. They go up to h6. (H1 is the highest)