3.8 - how long is it useful?

[Paul M]

Only PHP 5.4 support and nothing else?

Well probably a few minor changes for later MySQL as well, the forum itself will run fine on MySQL 5.5, but a couple of bits in the installer / upgrader will choke on the old TYPE command.

There certainly wont be new features or bug fixes if thats what you are referring too.

 

[Gladius]

Well if you're fixing it up for PHP 5.4/5 at a minimum I'd expect MySQL 5.6 support as well... they go hand in hand.

 

[Tatl]

Buy vB5 and you can upgrade your forum to 3.8.8...

 

[HallofFamer]

Buy vB5 and you can upgrade your forum to 3.8.8...

Yup, and it would be a significant upgrade.

 

[dethfire]

The major problems with 3.8 is the table template structure and that the BBcode still uses deprecated html tags.

 

[phoenixdown21]

I thought vb 3.8 was end of life (new release not withstanding).

 

[darnoldy]

I thought vb 3.8 was end of life (new release not withstanding).

It is... but that doesn't mean that it will turn into a pumpkin at midnight.

 

[phoenixdown21]

I'm not saying that but when a product hits end of life, I usually try to move off it within a reasonable time frame.

 

[darnoldy]

ATM, none of the possible moves look attractive to me.

I'm hoping, if I can get another year or two out of an update, one of the alternatives will look better by that time.

I suspect that there are a number of folks who feel similarly.

--don

 

[Alpha1]

I'm hoping, if I can get another year or two out of an update

I'm afraid thats very positive thinking.
Google webmaster tools already shows a warning to update vbulletin 3 to vb4 due to SEO issues.

 

[Mark.B]

I'm afraid thats very positive thinking.
Google webmaster tools already shows a warning to update vbulletin 3 to vb4 due to SEO issues.

Google should shut its mouth and stop interfering in people's sites.

I upgraded from vB3 to vB4 and left the URL settings as for vB3. That's the recommended way to do it with an upgrade so how would it improve seo?

SEO is a poor reason to decide to upgrade. Unless people want specific features vB3 is fine if it meets their needs.

 

[we_are_borg]

Google should shut its mouth and stop interfering in people's sites.

I upgraded from vB3 to vB4 and left the URL settings as for vB3. That's the recommended way to do it with an upgrade so how would it improve seo?

SEO is a poor reason to decide to upgrade. Unless people want specific features vB3 is fine if it meets their needs.

You and many others at vBulletin should really start reading on SEO, while SEO is not everything you'll still need it. SEO should not be put on first place but everything that can be done without touching user experiance is always a plus. If you do nothing about SEO you will get penalties other sites will be put in front of you when searching. Google has a nice PDF about SEO in there you see what to do and what not managers, developers and support staff should read it at vBulletin. The reason Google is saying vBulletin 3 is absolete is that its to old the SEO in that system isn't updated for so long its not current anymore. If you look at vBulletin 3 vs Xenforo SEO Xenforo would win just because they have updated SEO in there software, thats SEO only btw nothing else.
Take vBulletin 5 for example the first stupid mistake that the managers and/or developrs made is not giving multiple pages unique page titles. Even worse early last year Google showed in a blog video how to do just that and in a way that search engines could see it was one topic. Also the way how vBulletin operates gives problems in browsers read a topic from page one to lets say page three now you want to read back on page two you hit the back button and your back on the forum home because the browser has no way of knowing that you where on page three because the page was not unique and URL was not unique. This is the best example because it effects SEO in a big way but users experiance is better when you can use the back button and forward button the same way on every other site in the world.

 

[darnoldy]

I'm afraid thats very positive thinking.
Google webmaster tools already shows a warning to update vbulletin 3 to vb4 due to SEO issues.

Does it say what those issues are? I'm not saying it doesn't have any—I just would like to know what they are. Did it not have them 6 months or a year ago?

 

[s.molinari]

Hey Borg. Can you give us a link to that PDF and blog video you mentioned from Google?

And I agree with you about modern SEO and it needing to be a part of the design in any good web application today and it also being one of many good reasons for you to upgrade your software, should your current software lack SEO. vB3.8.X unfortunately, doesn't have too much in terms of modern SEO "techniques" and thus sites using vB3 will suffer in search engine rankings compared to other sites of the same subject matter, which do have SE optimization built in to their web applications. This is a fact of search engine life.

Scott

 

[we_are_borg]

Hey Borg. Can you give us a link to that PDF and blog video you mentioned from Google?

And I agree with you about modern SEO and it needing to be a part of the design in any good web application today and it also being one of many good reasons for you to upgrade your software, should your current software lack SEO. vB3.8.X unfortunately, doesn't have too much in terms of modern SEO "techniques" and thus sites using vB3 will suffer in search engine rankings compared to other sites of the same subject matter, which do have SE optimization built in to their web applications. This is a fact of search engine life.

Scott

Will do it later on the day dont have a pc at moment so cant really search for the video.

The pdf is here http://static.googleusercontent.com.../search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

If it in dutch do a google search "google seo guide" it should be in a few languages its marked as a pdf link in the search.

 

[s.molinari]

Thanks. The PDF is in English.

Scott

 

[we_are_borg]

Thanks. The PDF is in English.

Scott

The video is going to take longer cant find it, funny thing is its from google but try searching google on google.

 

[s.molinari]

No worries. If you don't find it no big deal.

The PDF was interesting. Especially the part about mobile content. I didn't know Google actually searched for specialized mobile content with a "mobile" bot.

Scott

 

[we_are_borg]

No worries. If you don't find it no big deal.

The PDF was interesting. Especially the part about mobile content. I didn't know Google actually searched for specialized mobile content with a "mobile" bot.

Scott

Well the problem is that Google changes every now and then to keep informed about changes you need to read a lot. Well you can say thats me i read a lot not so much any more as 2 years back. I am going to search for that video in a hour or so, the funny thing is that it was posted on vBulletin site but the search is not 100% over there.

 

[we_are_borg]

This is the pagination and SEO video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=njn8uXTWiGg#!

It comes from this page http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.nl/2012/03/video-about-pagination-with-relnext-and.html