To VBSEO or not

However, as stated above, PhotoPost isn't a plug-in - it's a stand-alone product with deep integration options with vBulletin. You can use PhotoPost as a stand-alone gallery without any forum whatsoever - like I do on my personal site to share photos with friends and family - or within a paysite, like I do on another of my sites. That it integrates with vBulletin doesn't make it "cheaper", just gives our customers greater flexibility. (More than a few customers have converted from one forum type to another and been able to take their gallery with them; something you won't find with any other plug-in built for a specific forum).

vBGallery will remain a "plug in" for vBulletin for the long term. We have no plans to discontinue it - in fact, in the few short months we have owned it, we have already released one update. You may have noticed that Adobe offers several versions of its products as well; that we offer two solutions for vBulletin forums is not a conflict - it's simply giving users a choice between features and integrations.

Stand-alone galleries will always have a marketplace. Integrated galleries, something pioneered by PhotoPost, will always have a place as well, although one can expect the number of choices users have to increase over time. PhotoPost has pioneered many of the features you'll find in other gallery packages and I expect that trend will continue for the forseeable future.

The pricing model of vBulletin is very different from the pricing model of just about any other script out there; so comparing vB to, say, PhotoPost is like comparing apples to oranges.

If I didn't need a pair of sneakers, I probably wouldn't see the sense in paying $130 for a pair either.

I think the discussion about prices is largely irrelevant. Everyone seems to agree that an item is worth to one what one is willing to pay for it. Some think 130 is too much, other's think it's just fine.

I would happily pay 130 for a gallery that does exactly what I want it to do, unfortunately there is no such thing yet.

linesiders said:

Good evening - I run a decent size vB: Threads: 29,663, Posts: 360,303, Members: 3,778, been around for 6 years. I currently have 34000 pages indexed at Google. Should I leave well enough alone? Will I screw up where I am now I did vbseo? Or anything else for that matter?

Thanks...

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Some obvious responses here from true SEO pros. I'm certainly not, but I'd like to mention something that may entice you to try vBSEO. My vBulletin forum has about 86K posts and before installing vBSEO I had 9,670 URLs in Google. Today, roughly six weeks later I have 28,100 URLS in Google! That's pretty compelling to me. Of course, I installed it after converting my forum from a SEO-optimized phpBB board so many of my indexed URLs were dead anyway.

Encryption is the lamest argument for not using a program. Its not like you're taking freaking bank details.

A lot of 'webware' is going this way as a way to preserve commercial investment and stick it to a good portion of butt pirates thinking its cute to steal peoples code. Sure it doesn't get em all, but it gets a good swoop of em Furthermore, peoples attitudes are changing about 'encypted' scripts. I wouldnt use one from someone releasing a hack at .org but I use them from professional writers that have good reputations. After all, 99.999% of all software we use is encrypted. I am sure you are using an 'encrypted' browser to read this post. Most likely the same encrypted system used to check your on line bank details. You've more than likely used an encrypted programme to read your emails on.

As for vBSEO, There are crap loads of people that wave the banner and are not affiliated with the company. Me? I bought it and use it on one of my sites and I get value for my investment big time. So, you can count me in on a good reference for them. Would I put it on all my sites? Naaa. Do I think $130 is fair? Fair enough for one of my sites, not for the others (hence WHY I use it on one site and not on others).

Just my thoughts

The Geek said:

Encryption is the lamest argument for not using a program. Its not like you're taking freaking bank details.

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Personally I think that encryption is probably the best argument for not using a program. Not only are admins responsible for their user data, but far greater than the threat of having the user data abused is having the user data stolen to open a competing web presence. I don't think that this concern as such is lame.

Whether vBSEO is a problem child or not is irrelevant when it comes to the concern for one's database. It's not about the program, it's about the concept.

The Geek said:

As for vBSEO, There are crap loads of people that wave the banner and are not affiliated with the company. Me? I bought it and use it on one of my sites and I get value for my investment big time. So, you can count me in on a good reference for them. Would I put it on all my sites? Naaa. Do I think $130 is fair? Fair enough for one of my sites, not for the others (hence WHY I use it on one site and not on others).

Just my thoughts

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Do you have before and after stats to justify your claim?

I bought vBSEO also and indexed more than 25000 pages but overall I think it was not a good idea to buy it.

vBSEO is a great peace of software, clever and stable but my goal to get more members with installing it was not reached.
I think this is not a problem of vBSEO at all cause it depends on what I configured and what I offer on my site.

Like many others said here already its always really up to you and your page.

Is it worth the money for you?

In my case I bought it after reading and thinking about for more than 14 days but my goal was not reached.

Well now I have it and will use it and I am quite sure that it will help me sooner or later. The only thing I am angry about myself was the price I paid for it.
For a private page vBSEO is not very cheap.
Not to missunderstand, I am sure its worth its money but having spent the money without reaching my private goal is now a real pain in the ass for me.

@sculli - you best be careful you dont use any encrypted software (i.e. a browser) to view your users email addresses! Seriously guys, 9.9999% of sotware is encrypted. Do you NOT use it because of that fact?

@PacMan. Before I went to vbseo I think I had around 900 pages indexed at google. Now I have about 23,000. Thats a nice enough increase for me

Major benefits of using vbseo are:
1. One page for your content.
2. Avoid PR leaks.
3. Keyword rich URLs (caution use them effectively)

I am testing the product on a new forum, looks impressive so far, did not saw a boost in crawling although..

Regards,

The Geek said:

@PacMan. Before I went to vbseo I think I had around 900 pages indexed at google. Now I have about 23,000. Thats a nice enough increase for me

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Thats a nice increase, but are people actually comming to your site from those indexed pages? Have you seen an increase in traffic, registration and revenue?

jluerken said:

vBSEO is a great peace of software, clever and stable but my goal to get more members with installing it was not reached.

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This is what I would want to get out of VBseo as well.

Sure. Why wouldnt you get an increase?

I did a lot of SEOish stuff around the same time and a lot of it could be down to timing so I wont chalk it all up to vbSEO, however I am confident that it has had a healthy impact well worth the money paid for it.

The Geek said:

Sure. Why wouldnt you get an increase?

I did a lot of SEOish stuff around the same time and a lot of it could be down to timing so I wont chalk it all up to vbSEO, however I am confident that it has had a healthy impact well worth the money paid for it.

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If you were number 1 for your key words on google, yahoo and MSN, would you consider getting this product?

Sure. Only because I don't see how it could hinder that and maybe it would give you a buffer to stay there easier.

In the end, I would get it if the price is reasonable for you and won't break your bank. If money is on the tight side - I would skip it (especially if you're doing so well already)

If you're already number one, make sure vBSEO doesn't change your URLs so you end up with different URLs being spidered.

Erwin said:

If you're already number one, make sure vBSEO doesn't change your URLs so you end up with different URLs being spidered.

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That is exactly what vBSEO does, and is probally one of the more viable reasons for not installing the script after already developing a well indexed history with a steady rate of increase search engine referrals. Whilst vBSEO with 302 rewrite your old vBulletin URLs to the new context relevant vBSEO URLs there is no garentee that Google and other search engines will assign the same ranking placement to these new URLs as with the old.

As with The Geek, although i am not affiliated directly with the company, i am perfectly happy to provide vBulletin administrators of any experience with the vBSEO Purchase page URL as a recommendation for a SEO solution which does bring results.

Personally I think SEO is highly overrated for online forums, particularly the smaller ones. A lot of my members are from social networking and from other sites I visit. In one-and-a-half years, I've got tons of traffic from search engines, but very few people who actually turned into active members.

Just think. Would I join a new forum I encountered on the web through a search engine having a few hundred members and of which I know nothing about?

Larger websites with 1000s of members benefit more from SEO. Not smaller ones. Social networking plays a much more important role in building smaller communities.

I think what the vBSEO crowd is saying though is that one is better off to start a site with vBSEO installed, than to add it later once the site has already established itself.

On the other hand there are plenty of people who get great SE rankings and indexed pages without to ever use vBSEO. I am sure for every vBSEO success story there are dozens of SEO success stories that do not involve vBSEO.

harishankar said:

Personally I think SEO is highly overrated for online forums, particularly the smaller ones. A lot of my members are from social networking and from other sites I visit. In one-and-a-half years, I've got tons of traffic from search engines, but very few people who actually turned into active members.

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This is true

harishankar said:

Larger websites with 1000s of members benefit more from SEO. Not smaller ones. Social networking plays a much more important role in building smaller communities.

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Well, if someones board has 15.000 members, SEOing that baord would be great. More traffic would increase ad rates so more money in