XF 2.1 Less page views with xenforo

qwer81

Member
Hi guys, with the migration from Vbulletin to Xenforo I have seen a drop of almost 50% of the pageviews (Analytic). Obviously, I redirected all the URLs, the number of visits is the same (even from Google) but I see this drop in pages viewed. Maybe it depends on the settings and functions of Xenforo which are different from those of Vbulletin? If so, can you recommend some settings to increase the number of pages viewed? Thanks!
 
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Sorry duh, I must have missed that as I remember you followed up with the number of visits is the same (even from Google). Do you mean that your overall traffic is unchanged, but another metric in analytics is off by comparison? If you could explain a bit more of the specific metrics and differences I might have an idea.
 
Sorry duh, I must have missed that as I remember you followed up with the number of visits is the same (even from Google). Do you mean that your overall traffic is unchanged, but another metric in analytics is off by comparison? If you could explain a bit more of the specific metrics and differences I might have an idea.

Yes, the number of visits has remained more or less the same. But the number of pages viewed has changed. I read this thread (but it's old) https://xenforo.com/community/threads/less-page-views-with-xenforo.63689/ about the reasons for the possible drop in displayed pages. With Xenoforo 2, can i change anything at the level of settings to increase the pages viewed per user?
 
Ah ok, I checked that thread and honestly there's some very good information there already. I completely agree that the structural and efficiency difference in Xenforo is a noticeable change coming from vBulletin, along with UI and user navigation experience. The nature of how Xenforo pulls users throughout the site can have a direct impact. But as someone stated, this isn't necessary a bad thing. As Jeremy stated, the use of overlays alone plays a part.

If you're speaking revenue here, you could theoretically disable overlays if you're running ads everywhere, and inflate the pages viewed to perform basic site functions. But again, is this good user experience?

Also, vBulletin was a very bloated software (albeit can depend on systems used along with it, such as mods) and could easily inflate metrics in a useless way.

I'd say firstly, is there a revenue drop corresponding to the lack of page views, and importantly, less page view time and increased bounce rate. That could signal something else entirely.

You're also going to go through some havoc in some metrics changing over software by pure principle. Over time though, many large boards recover and actually increase performance with XF over vBulletin.
 
Ah ok, I checked that thread and honestly there's some very good information there already. I completely agree that the structural and efficiency difference in Xenforo is a noticeable change coming from vBulletin, along with UI and user navigation experience. The nature of how Xenforo pulls users throughout the site can have a direct impact. But as someone stated, this isn't necessary a bad thing. As Jeremy stated, the use of overlays alone plays a part.

If you're speaking revenue here, you could theoretically disable overlays if you're running ads everywhere, and inflate the pages viewed to perform basic site functions. But again, is this good user experience?

Also, vBulletin was a very bloated software (albeit can depend on systems used along with it, such as mods) and could easily inflate metrics in a useless way.

I'd say firstly, is there a revenue drop corresponding to the lack of page views, and importantly, less page view time and increased bounce rate. That could signal something else entirely.

You're also going to go through some havoc in some metrics changing over software by pure principle. Over time though, many large boards recover and actually increase performance with XF over vBulletin.
Ok!

One question: how do I disable the overlays and make the page reload?
 
You could decrease the number of items (posts in threads, threads in forums, etc.) shown per page - but that would be bad for user experience and SEO.

Don't do that.

Really, if visits are ~ the same I wouldn't care too much.
 
Agreed, and I'd like to state again that unless you're experiencing a drop in actual important metrics (traffic, click-through, organic search, ad revenue, page time, bounce rate) which you haven't mentioned here, then in isolation I think you're chasing an arbitrary number that doesn't really mean anything.

If your Xenforo site (and the user experience along with how your theme and site structure are presented) are beneficial that it ends up creating things like more time spent on page, SEO rank or organic search, then those matter way more than matching up page views to a legacy software.
 
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