Would you recommend VBSEO ?

[mihai11]

Hi all,



Would you recommend VBSEO ? Is VBulletin going to implement in the future some techniques used in VBSeo currently – most notably URL rewriting ?

I hope to hear some documented opinions about this – especially from VB support team.



Regards,
Razvan M.

[simsim]

Check the links at the end of this page.

[mihai11]

Are there any plans to implement the URL rewrite in VB in the future ? This is the only feature that I really care for from the whole VBSeo package.


Regards,
Razvan

[Floris]

Hi all,



Would you recommend VBSEO ? Is VBulletin going to implement in the future some techniques used in VBSeo currently – most notably URL rewriting ?

I hope to hear some documented opinions about this – especially from VB support team.



Regards,
Razvan M.

As staff members we can not officially recommend any third party software.

[mihai11]

There are whole sites dedicated to changing VB. Please be open minded about this and don’t cite your policy regarding this.

I am interested about the benefits of this package. Maybe you can comment something about this, if you are informed.



Regards,
Razvan

[feldon23]

I am not am employee of Jelsoft. I can only speak to comments I've seen in the past and not future plans.

I believe there are NO plans to implement URL rewriting. This would make vBulletin an Apache-only solution. Furthermore, URL rewriting is completely irrelevant and unnecessary for the "Big 3": Google, Yahoo, and MSN search.

If vBSEO is too rich for your blood, you can look at free alternatives which are posted and maintained at vBulletin.org.

What I think would be more valuable to search engines is the ability to add keywords (some call this tagging) to threads and posts. I don't know how many people would actually take the time to put keywords in their threads, but this information would certainly be valuable, even, I think, to search engines like Google which give less than 50% value to META keywords.

[Floris]

There are whole sites dedicated to changing VB. Please be open minded about this and don’t cite your policy regarding this.

I am interested about the benefits of this package. Maybe you can comment something about this, if you are informed.



Regards,
Razvan

We are open minded, and we recognize the third party plugins. But we can not be responsible for making a recommendation and afterwards you are not satisfied buying it; putting the blame back on us (just one exampe).

I am not a vBSEO customer, I think from what is there on the market this appears to be in the top3 of most use SEO tools for vBulletin. If it is what you are looking for? I do not know. We didn't code, nor support it.

[iardon]

What I think would be more valuable to search engines is the ability to add keywords (some call this tagging) to threads and posts. I don't know how many people would actually take the time to put keywords in their threads, but this information would certainly be valuable, even, I think, to search engines like Google which give less than 50% value to META keywords.

Maybe somone could make a plugin for that.

[mihai11]

I believe there are NO plans to implement URL rewriting. This would make vBulletin an Apache-only solution. Furthermore, URL rewriting is completely irrelevant and unnecessary for the "Big 3": Google, Yahoo, and MSN search.

This is a very interesting affirmation but most probably wrong. One parameter (among many, but still an important parameter) is the keywords found in URL. Why did you reach the conclusion that keywords in URL are irrelevant ? They are not as important as they were 3 years ago, but they are still relevant.

If vBSEO is too rich for your blood, you can look at free alternatives which are posted and maintained at vBulletin.org.

That is not the point. I have money. Plenty. But I made some money because I am not stupid to buy useless things. I am big fan of the KISS principle. The KISS principle can earn you a lot of money in the long term. This is why I am evaluating very careful VBSeo. It is an extra care for my site and I want to understand exactly what do I gain by adding this.

KISS principle = Keep It Simple Stupid

What I think would be more valuable to search engines is the ability to add keywords (some call this tagging) to threads and posts. I don't know how many people would actually take the time to put keywords in their threads, but this information would certainly be valuable, even, I think, to search engines like Google which give less than 50% value to META keywords.

Can you develop this phrase ? Where do you want to add keywords ? In the “description” and “keywords” META tags ? I am pretty sure that these META tags mean nothing for Google for several years now – due to MASSIVE spamming on this technique.

Note:
About VBSeo – I tend to let it go. I have another site PR4. Most of the threads from my PhpBB forums are in Google database. The threads have a very good title – the name of the thread. They are in Google DB and they look very nice in the results. I mean, they are “clickable” because the title of the page is listed. The same holds true for VB.

Also my intuition is telling me that the keywords in URL tend to loose in importance because so many people these days are using this technique. I have no facts to support this, except the fact that this technique is used for years (it is very old). This means that the SE would have to adapt to ignore it somehow, or they will be an easy prey to SPAMMERS.



Regards,
Razvan

[feldon23]

There's some kind of plugin but I think it's a pretty extensive modification to add additional columns to the thread table and make sure those columns are preserved during all operations. I don't know much about plugin programming.

[mihai11]

We are open minded, and we recognize the third party plugins. But we can not be responsible for making a recommendation and afterwards you are not satisfied buying it; putting the blame back on us (just one exampe).

Floris, I am all grown up and vaccinated. I would never make such claims, and quite honestly I don’t think that other people are so stupid as to do that. But, you probably now better since you are such an old contributor to this forum.

I am restating again what I asked: I need an opinion based on facts. I have absolutely no regards for statements like this:

“-VBSeo is good.”
“-VBSeo is bad.”

What I am looking for is:

“-VBSeo is good because: a)… b) … c) … “
“-VBSeo is bad because a) … b) … c) … “

I will not trust anybody with a decision that I have to make. I want to understand as much as possible what is “under the hood”. This is the sort of discussion that I hoped to raise.

I am not a vBSEO customer, I think from what is there on the market this appears to be in the top3 of most use SEO tools for vBulletin. If it is what you are looking for? I do not know. We didn't code, nor support it.

So what ? Even if it is the no. 1 SEO tool what is that telling you ? I don’t think that following the directions where most of the sheep are going is always the best thing to do. In fact, life can give you plenty of examples where you shouldn’t do it.



Regards,
Razvan

[Floris]

I understand your question, but you post it in the PRE SALES forum for our services and products. vBSEO isn't that. So as a staff member I can't make an official recommendation. That's my post. I am sure others can reply as a customer with their experience.

[Steve Machol]

You might also wanrt to the the Similar Threads at the bottom of this page. This has been discussed before.

[mihai11]

May I try a different approach ? Why you are not implementing the URL rewrite feature in VB ? Because it will make VB Apache-dependent ? Are there any other reasons ?

If you can answer this question with enough information then you will clarify a lot of questions for me.



Regards,
Razvan

[Steve Machol]

May I try a different approach ? Why you are not implementing the URL rewrite feature in VB ? Because it will make VB Apache-dependent ?

That's correct. We avoid adding features that are dependent on having Apache installed since many of our customers use other web servers.