Forsaken
Well-known member
I won't take anyone seriously if they call themselves a professional administrator, or act like it is some form of achievement
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Success or destruction stories with xenForo?
- Thread starter AzzidReign
- Start date
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BrandonT
Member
I just recently purchased after using IPB for a long time and ended up skipping on the conversion. Luckily I have a nice bit of followers I am in contact with but getting back on topic I have really enjoyed working on getting everything set up with this new software and am acutally enjoying getting back into the community scene (Never felt the urge with IPB after it lifted off) so that is all really positive to me. Only thing I am sort of worried about is how the modding community is gonna go. I love having extras for my community and I feel this software has a nice start but at same time noticed a lot of possibly good mods being placed on hold or abandoned. I think if it gets a good mod connection like VB then it will by far be the best. Just my 2 cents.
Carlos
Well-known member
Don'tcha think that's a lil....harsh?I won't take anyone seriously if they call themselves a professional administrator, or act like it is some form of achievement
DBA
Well-known member
The xenforo thread has the top spot for me....
mrGTB
Well-known member
Not really, I tend to agree with Forsaken on that one. It's just a forum your running after all, not MI5 you managing director at. It's always made me laugh when I see some folk using signatures like: Sims Forum Managing Director.
I won't take anyone seriously if they call themselves a professional administrator, or act like it is some form of achievement
Marc
Well-known member
3dsoft
Active member
Sorry, but you guys are a little too late for this comparision because IP.Board deleted all test messages at their board in mid/late December. So IP.Boards comparision test message got deleted and google took it out of the search results.
But until then, IP.Boards test message had been ranked first and second was xenforo.
jadmperry
Well-known member
Seems like a false measure of SEO. If the comparison is based on IP.Board's test message vs a test message on Xenforo, the search engine algorithm takes into account the history of the site where it was posted (length of time in existence) and the number of "eyeballs" (hits) on the posts. The valid test would be the same message posted on two new installations of the two platforms. Best I can tell, the comparison of the test messages you posted is useless for measuring the SEO value of the two platforms.
(I am not very knowledgeable about technical things or coding...but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night).
LoL
Is that what SEO in your mind ?
Marc
Well-known member
Which IMO would be correctly ranked and would be no baring on xenforo as a piece of software whatsoever. If they ranked 1st and 5th or something I would say yeah, however with both identical content then other factors would have to be taken into conderation such as popularity of the website in question. As invision is much much larger in user base it would of course be ranked higher and on that grounds the test IMO is completely flawed.
From someone who moved from IPB I can tell you their SEO is no better than xenforo. My rankings were already extremely high up on most things I would want my site to be so difficult to say honestly if they went up, however can tell you for certain I never lost anything at all.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I won't take anyone seriously if they call themselves a professional administrator, or act like it is some form of achievement
I don't label myself as such, but it certainly fits my job (or role) description in what I've done for forums. I've founded many forums, and have also taken over the administration of others. Beyond that, I have also had a hand in installing, upgrading, tweaking and coding for forum systems, for hire and for my own forum projects. I also date back to when the Internet was not part of modern society (or in other words, it wasn't known outside of the academic, government or computer hobbyist circles)--I was a Compuserve sysop, and a forum user prior to that. I'm known among colleagues as a "go-to" person where discussion boards are concerned. BUT...I don't go waving the flag and rubbing it in anyone's face either--I do what I do, and "professional forum administrator" probably best describes how I operate.
Back to the topic: we are still lacking a couple of features in XF that prevent us moving. We have XenTrader to convert our iTrader system over to, but big board search is a must-have. The Sphinx plugin, last I checked, is pretty much DOA for XF 1.1. We're near seven million posts, and can have over 800 members online during peak hours. Still, once we get a big board search, I may just bite the bullet, tell everyone we're converting, and tell them to get used to missing a few minor features.
For other forums, with lighter traffic: user participation and engagement improved immediately after upgrading and, several months later, participation is still up. Members like the system--it is clean and free of clutter, it's fast and liquid in daily usage, and controls are simple enough that even non-tech-savvy members find their way around with no guidance. As I've said before--it's all about my end users. They are the ones we are serving. I could absolutely hate everything about a forum system, but if it gets and keeps visitors participating (with the nice by-product of monetizing whatever I can), then it's a "win" in my book.
ProCom
Well-known member
Hey AzzidReign! I know you're busy, but since I stumbled on this old thread I thought I'd dig it up.
Seeing that your site has now been converted to xF for a while, it would be cool to hear you answer your own self's questions from years ago.
Again, I know you've got a lot going on, but it would be kick-ass to see you answer these questions yourself with your first hand experience! (especially for us little guys).
Seeing that your site has now been converted to xF for a while, it would be cool to hear you answer your own self's questions from years ago.
Again, I know you've got a lot going on, but it would be kick-ass to see you answer these questions yourself with your first hand experience! (especially for us little guys).
AzzidReign
Well-known member
Hey RobCom, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Here's a comparison from the same time of the year, xf vs IPB:Hey AzzidReign! I know you're busy, but since I stumbled on this old thread I thought I'd dig it up.
Seeing that your site has now been converted to xF for a while, it would be cool to hear you answer your own self's questions from years ago.
Again, I know you've got a lot going on, but it would be kick-ass to see you answer these questions yourself with your first hand experience! (especially for us little guys).
Just note the bounce rate and the page per visit stat. There was a hiccup in the code and the analytics code showed twice on the site for a few weeks until I could figure it out. Those are the only 2 stats that I believe are affected when you do that. The average bounce rate while on IPB before the code mishap was above 60%, which you can see we are doing much better. At one point, it was climbing to the mid 60's.
Also note the new visits...we are getting much more traffic and the one thing I can account for the new visit % is the increase of return visitors while still having an increase in new visitors. So while that stat looks "bad", you can see that we had almost an 80% increase in unique visitors and almost 100% in visits.
Also, prior to the double code mishap, the pages/visit were on a downward slope and the average was 4.5, so we are at about a 25% better difference.
The blue is xf, the red is IPB. The dip you see at the beginning of the blue is due to a DDoS attack that put us down for roughly 6 hours that day.
Last edited:
AzzidReign
Well-known member
Oh, should also mention ad revenue. For a while there, ad revenue was poor, but that was my fault on bad ad positions as opposed to what I had on IPB. Since I've moved to a better layout, my ad revenue during nov and dec were the highest I'd ever seen them this past year. I would typically do well in these months but this was something like over 200% better (so that made up for the rest of the year when I had poor placements). Now it's doing slightly better than it had in years past but I also have less ads showing than I did in the past so it's a win-win for my community.
WCFA
Active member
I have been using XF not quite 6 months. Most members we have had are used to the SMF/ PHPBB, MYBB type format.
Many of my members are admins and mods at other sites, we all kinda help and do a coop type thing rather then try and get
new mods and such you try and work together. Its nothing against XF its just that these guys have been
used to these software titles for along time compared to XF.
My members right off loved the sleek lines and advanced look, as SMF 2.0 why huge leap from 1.0 does not have that look.
However right off many members found the registering process to be overkill, drop down menu, fade and allot of unnecessary fluff.
After four months we change the login and signup to a more traditional look of a popup and direct signup.
Xenforo at signup has a very annoying aspect. Login /Signup in the top right goes to a drop down It says enter email or user name
and then asks are you a member or not ?. That right there has had 9 out ten people ask me what ? It then goes to the sign up and inputs the
email if you entered one. The signup button the( large one) goes right to the signup page. And thats the way it should be. Combining login and signup with variables that can or cannot apply is just to much to new visitors to new software. I changed this and now new visitors whom are used to SMF etc see it working as 99% of other software do.
One thing that again is slightly annoying when using XF, was the language. Other forums software use the same language , XF used Nodes, and Categories, Forums and such in away slightly different then the others making setup a tad different adding to a leaning curve.
XF, ACP is pretty good for the most part the ability to just about set any member settings is very cool and very intuitive. The online manual seems to be limited in wording as many times during setup I would search the help area using the name of an item in the software and it turned up nothing. Id say that occurred about 1/2 the time. I realize that XF is a very detailed software, but the help to new persons was not that helpful.
Some of the Widget framework, chat and ad software should be built into any paid software. The biggest is new registration addon is not only and addon its and addon at a cost. While its been standard on ever free forum I have ever used. So I have to see who is signing up is just real silly in my opinion. When one looks at XF, from a very new perspective from someone like me, you have to go what they offer for cash that is better then free.
Support is good from the software owners/developers themselves very top notch, using the forum varies allot, as there is a very tight nit group that are not mods but run the forum, often at the peril of the site reputation, doing a outside search of software reviews it is something very specific to this software forums.I have made some good friends in the forum so it is a good place, but there is a solid click presence, which the site ownership appears to rely pretty heavy on to answer and be involved, however being the forum is a community not XF staff at times you get responses from people that are not necessarily representing the XF staff. I stepped the wrong way when I first joined with only one person, but the forums click does not respond to my requests now because of one issue. Why this is important to know is that its not XF staff, as they are very good at what they do, but there is a sensitivity to nonstaff in this forum yet the click is often treated as staff making it complicated. Thats about as nice as I can say it, but being its reported outside in neutral reviews on the net its relevant and ties in because getting support is crucial to using any software even newbies. Perhaps placing this may help those who are in the niche group see that additional help is needed in not taking responses personally from new visitors and that they are not staff. As said I have made some great friends here and the forum as a whole is good to use. But should there be a black balled process on a paid software forum ? Well thats not my call, and was my experience.
I am still on the fence of whether I would use this software knowing then what I know now before purchase. The software is very strong and responses are very powerful compared to others. Our members increased as did visits once I fixed the registration process to be easier.
The XF is a great piece of software with a descent learning curve coming from other software . To me it appears that XF is just so close to nailing it, but just misses being amazing. As mentioned missing some very simple common additions kinda takes aways some of it, that is based only because its paid software. If it was free, the software would be miles away from many others. As it is now it just slightly for me tips the scale of being better then free versions. And yes why some options can be installed I kept asking myself while writing this for a paid version should I have to install basics? Other addons being paid makes some sense as most free versions do that allot.
I think XF, will only get better. The software seems ahead of the curve with a more dialing in I think it will out do all others.
Many of my members are admins and mods at other sites, we all kinda help and do a coop type thing rather then try and get
new mods and such you try and work together. Its nothing against XF its just that these guys have been
used to these software titles for along time compared to XF.
My members right off loved the sleek lines and advanced look, as SMF 2.0 why huge leap from 1.0 does not have that look.
However right off many members found the registering process to be overkill, drop down menu, fade and allot of unnecessary fluff.
After four months we change the login and signup to a more traditional look of a popup and direct signup.
Xenforo at signup has a very annoying aspect. Login /Signup in the top right goes to a drop down It says enter email or user name
and then asks are you a member or not ?. That right there has had 9 out ten people ask me what ? It then goes to the sign up and inputs the
email if you entered one. The signup button the( large one) goes right to the signup page. And thats the way it should be. Combining login and signup with variables that can or cannot apply is just to much to new visitors to new software. I changed this and now new visitors whom are used to SMF etc see it working as 99% of other software do.
One thing that again is slightly annoying when using XF, was the language. Other forums software use the same language , XF used Nodes, and Categories, Forums and such in away slightly different then the others making setup a tad different adding to a leaning curve.
XF, ACP is pretty good for the most part the ability to just about set any member settings is very cool and very intuitive. The online manual seems to be limited in wording as many times during setup I would search the help area using the name of an item in the software and it turned up nothing. Id say that occurred about 1/2 the time. I realize that XF is a very detailed software, but the help to new persons was not that helpful.
Some of the Widget framework, chat and ad software should be built into any paid software. The biggest is new registration addon is not only and addon its and addon at a cost. While its been standard on ever free forum I have ever used. So I have to see who is signing up is just real silly in my opinion. When one looks at XF, from a very new perspective from someone like me, you have to go what they offer for cash that is better then free.
Support is good from the software owners/developers themselves very top notch, using the forum varies allot, as there is a very tight nit group that are not mods but run the forum, often at the peril of the site reputation, doing a outside search of software reviews it is something very specific to this software forums.I have made some good friends in the forum so it is a good place, but there is a solid click presence, which the site ownership appears to rely pretty heavy on to answer and be involved, however being the forum is a community not XF staff at times you get responses from people that are not necessarily representing the XF staff. I stepped the wrong way when I first joined with only one person, but the forums click does not respond to my requests now because of one issue. Why this is important to know is that its not XF staff, as they are very good at what they do, but there is a sensitivity to nonstaff in this forum yet the click is often treated as staff making it complicated. Thats about as nice as I can say it, but being its reported outside in neutral reviews on the net its relevant and ties in because getting support is crucial to using any software even newbies. Perhaps placing this may help those who are in the niche group see that additional help is needed in not taking responses personally from new visitors and that they are not staff. As said I have made some great friends here and the forum as a whole is good to use. But should there be a black balled process on a paid software forum ? Well thats not my call, and was my experience.
I am still on the fence of whether I would use this software knowing then what I know now before purchase. The software is very strong and responses are very powerful compared to others. Our members increased as did visits once I fixed the registration process to be easier.
The XF is a great piece of software with a descent learning curve coming from other software . To me it appears that XF is just so close to nailing it, but just misses being amazing. As mentioned missing some very simple common additions kinda takes aways some of it, that is based only because its paid software. If it was free, the software would be miles away from many others. As it is now it just slightly for me tips the scale of being better then free versions. And yes why some options can be installed I kept asking myself while writing this for a paid version should I have to install basics? Other addons being paid makes some sense as most free versions do that allot.
I think XF, will only get better. The software seems ahead of the curve with a more dialing in I think it will out do all others.
