Still Not Sure About XF? Look Here [XF User Engagement]

TheBigK

Well-known member
Okay, this post should help you make your decision whether XF is right for you or not. We were on vBulletin 3; then on vBulletin 4 with vBSEO and then after having troubles with vB; took the hard decision to switch to XF. Yes; we too had the same question you currently have; but we just bought XF license the day it was released.

After playing with it on our local machines; we decided that 'THIS IS IT'. On December 01, we made a switch. The feedback from regular members has been 'all positive'. But being an engineer myself; I'd trust machines more than humans. Look at the graph produced by machines @ Google Analytics -

Xenforo-User-Engagement.webp

... and we are setting up new records in postings, conversations & likes. I can't share numbers but the line shows where it's going.

What's more amazing is that people are abandoning FB for meaningful discussions on the site! Woa!

*Issued In Public Interest (y).
 
No offence, but the thing with stats is they can be inflated easily by sending threads into Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites XenForo offers you the option of doing built into it very easy. Not trying to be funny or anything, but it's not hard to do and the incoming traffic from them social networking sites as a result with give the false impression your traffic statistics are very impressive.

Just something worth keeping in mind, you need to be talking about unique visitors and showing some figures of them also, not just some line-graph. Show some "Real" traffic stats that's not mostly built up of SN spiders coming.
 
No offence, but the thing with stats is they can be inflated easily by sending threads into Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites XenForo offers you the option of doing built into it very easy. Not trying to be funny or anything, but it's not hard to do and the incoming traffic from them social networking sites as a result with give the false impression your traffic statistics are very impressive.

Just something worth keeping in mind, you need to be talking about unique visitors and showing some figures of them also, not just some line-graph. Show some "Real" traffic stats that's not mostly built up of SN spiders coming.

Think you heavily missed the point. He's showing the average time on site (the clue's in the title of the plot :p).
 
No offence, but the thing with stats is they can be inflated easily by sending threads into Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites XenForo offers you the option of doing built into it very easy. Not trying to be funny or anything, but it's not hard to do and the incoming traffic from them social networking sites as a result with give the false impression your traffic statistics are very impressive.

Just something worth keeping in mind, you need to be talking about unique visitors and showing some figures of them also, not just some line-graph. Show some "Real" traffic stats that's not mostly built up of SN spiders coming.

We're talking about the 'Average Time Spent On The Site', right? We've been with vBulletin which had the same facilities to share stuff on Facebook & Twitter. We do not actively engage on FB & Twitter; and I'm not sure how Social Networks affect the average time on the site. If people like content and stick to the site longer; then the average time on the site improves.

Anyway; I did not intend to post any false statistics. The graph should give you an idea that *our users* are sticking to the site longer.
 
Well personally I don't like using forums unless they use XenForo. Before XenForo I didn't like using any forum, I just don't liek to spend the time keeping up with things etc. However XenForo does all this for me. If I ever post something in a thread and don't care what people reply unless they reply to me I am fine as I will get an alert. If I want to be up to date on a thread I can easily watch it and be alerted on the site. When I want to do something it is quick and easy, I never have to look for what I want. I don't even have to register most of the time. I can just use facebook. It is just easier to stay on a XenForo site.
 
We're talking about the 'Average Time Spent On The Site', right? We've been with vBulletin which had the same facilities to share stuff on Facebook & Twitter. We do not actively engage on FB & Twitter; and I'm not sure how Social Networks affect the average time on the site. If people like content and stick to the site longer; then the average time on the site improves.

Anyway; I did not intend to post any false statistics. The graph should give you an idea that *our users* are sticking to the site longer.

Fair enough, I looked at the graph and thought you was talking here about daily traffic increases, not time spent on site. Also, I wasn't accusing you of posting false stats, just that had it been daily traffic graph it can be misleading because of SN sites if you send lots of threads into them daily.

Just trying to put a little more realistic perspective on things.
 
@mrGTB: Agreed. SN can send lot of traffic. But average time is purely a function of 'likability' ; which is definitely on the rise since XF.
 
Fair enough, I looked at the graph and thought you was talking here about daily traffic increases, not time spent on site. Also, I wasn't accusing you of posting false stats, just that had it been daily traffic graph it can be misleading because of SN sites if you send lots of threads into them daily.

Just trying to put a little more realistic perspective on things.
Yeah, with SN's you will see SPIKES, not a steady increase. I know this because one of the sites I use to own relied solely on social networks and bookmarking sites to get the traffic. On top of that, if he was using SN's and bookmarking sites, the time on site drastically decreases (again, I know this because it's what I did on one of my sites). They come to the site, read what they want, and then leave. It's the nature of the beast.

But as pointed out already, this is time spent on the site ,which is quite impressive...though, I would like to see the actual numbers. Going from 1 minute to 3 minutes can show that type of increase. If the numbers were 5 minutes up to 15 minutes, that would be pretty impressive.
 
I've seen the exact same thing happen - average time on site with VB4 was about 9 minutes. I've had Xenforo installed for a week today and its now up to 15 minutes for the last 3 days (and nothing less than 13 minutes for the week)
What kind of forum you are running? To keep people around for 15 min average is amazing.
 
Yep disabled the logout and made a pop up which says "are you sure you want to leave ?" and have that come up 40 times before they can leave ;)

maybe they all fall asleep :sleep:
 
Yep disabled the logout and made a pop up which says "are you sure you want to leave ?" and have that come up 40 times before they can leave ;)

maybe they all fall asleep :sleep:
I'd replace it with something like -

"Are you sure you hate yourself?" :D
 
That completely depends on the forum and it's audience. I have a site still on vb where the average time on site is more than 20 minutes.
 
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