Duplicate vBSEO vs XenForo
- Thread starter Phiras
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petertdavis
Well-known member
I hadn't seen that. Thanks for pointing it out!
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
In terms of add-ons, and other capabilities, I'm probably at the 95% point in XenForo, at least compared to my vB forums. I'd like to see message tagging, Thank You flags, email reminders to people who haven't posted, all of which can be done with add-ons. Anyone know if these are being worked on?
Deepmartini
Well-known member
Is wordpress SEO better than Xenforo SEO?
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
There are loads of plugins for WordPress that promise to enhance the basic SEO capability of the app. WordPress doesn't do sitemaps without a plugin, which seems a serious missing feature.
el canadiano
Active member
XenUtiles is also another Sitemap option, along with that they also have some anti-spam protection as well.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/8wayrun-com-xenutiles-tools.9754/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/8wayrun-com-xenutiles-tools.9754/
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
Neat, but it's not clear from the add-on how often it updates sitemaps, or whether it needs a special folder.
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
Do you even need one? vBSEO is, to me, mostly snake oil anyway.
Rob
Well-known member
Gene, I feel I must step in here from vBSEO's corner because they appear to be getting quite a bashing, and mostly from you.
As a specialist in SEO (for over 10 years now) I hope that my experience and knowledge can go some way to dispelling many of the comments in this thread. It boils my blood to see a product which has toiled for so long to overcome many of vB's shortcomings take such a battering and I suspect that it gets such merely by association to its parent framework on which it must run.
xenForo itself would not have come about if vBulletin wasn't so full of issues, (treading carefully...) quirks and code spaghetti nightmares. If vB was solid, fore-running (like it was once) and up to scratch then I doubt xenForo would exist at all. The same goes for vBSEO.
I have used vBSEO for years, I have frequented their forum, been a beta tester and have offered valuable suggestions and feedback over time. I think I am qualified enough to give you first hand experience of the software which I have used extensively on two large and busy boards. The boost in traffic due to higher rankings is so startlingly obvious Im lost for words at anyone who just doesnt see it. Thousands of sites run vBSEO and do so for obvious (duh) reasons.
vBSEO is critical for anyone who is serious about the SEO on vBulletin... without it, competitors in the same niche using it will outrank you every time. This is not smoke and mirrors, its facts - if you don't believe me then thats fine, you do the research yourself.
vBSEO's content relevant URL's is a powerful feature and important on its own for good SEO. The sitemaps and pinging SE's is a useful feature but has no bearing on ranking really since SE's will find the content in time anyway. However, linkbacks and pinkbacks are very useful and does have a bearing on SEO... how many links to blogs get posted in forums... quite a few... how else would you get free links on that blog without the pingback? So... it handles onsite SEO and also linkbuilding too.... interesting hmmm...
It also tackles another onsite SEO factor... that of code to content ratio. vBSEO can remove a lot of background noise in your code. Many of the columns on forum home and forum display pages are not important for rankings - vBSEO can remove these with a simple option, reducing the code served to search engines and guests by a hell of a lot, not to mention compressing the HTML. vBSEO will almost entirely eradicate duplicate content urls... something that does indeed plague vB standard - this has a big bearing on SEO and ensures only the main content pages receive traffic and pagerank as opposed to alternative URLs to the same page - so pagerank is not watered down.... it preserves pagerank - an important SEO factor. It also boost content relevance (SEO factor? damn right) in so many ways.
In fact, I cant be bothered to go on... any reasonable person with an ounce of intelligence on matters SEO will appreciate that the majority of these features have a big impact on SEO - anyone who says otherwise is just simply foolish. There are so many testimonials for a reason. vBSEO has saved me literally hundreds of hours work in modifying code and writing plugins - thats first hand and as true as it gets.
Sorry for the rant but I cant stand by in idleness and watch a product and the effort that has been put in and which does so much to *fix* vBulletin take a bash. I hold crawlability in the same high regard as I hold xenForo because of their unswerving dedication to improve the forumscape.
Credit where credit is due.
DRE
Well-known member
The only thing I've seen that you can't do in vb4 without vbSEO is pingback, trackback, and refbacks in threads.
Everything else has been addressed in vb4. Ex: mod-rewrites, free add-ons like sitemaps and free CDN services like Cloudflare.
vbSEO was great and a must have for vb3 though.
Everything else has been addressed in vb4. Ex: mod-rewrites, free add-ons like sitemaps and free CDN services like Cloudflare.
vbSEO was great and a must have for vb3 though.
Rob
Well-known member
Thanks... now I need a new keyboard having just spat my coffee all over it. With respect, you could not be more wrong. See my comments re code to content ratios, content relevance and duplicate content URLs. Those have been addressed?? Are you looking at the same vB4 that I am looking at?
Why is it that people associate vBSEO with JUST content relevant URL's.... it does SO MUCH more for SEO.
DRE
Well-known member
I've only been a webmaster for a year and a half. I'll just take your word for it. It's just that whenever I looked at the feature's list, that was the only thing I saw was missing. Blame vbSEO for not updating their features list back then. I hope they have lately. I haven't checked since then.
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
You an believe
I have not used the product with vB4, so I won't comment on that. Your statements deliver a lot of claims, but it would require lots of before and after comparisons and contrast to prove; not just with and without, but with essentially the same content in different forums to see how they gain rankings. These days, I understand you can no longer trick Google into giving you a good ranking. You need a site with good content.
Indeed, when I once visited a forum that supported vBSEO and asked for some evidence of its effectiveness, I encountered a bunch of emotional lightweights that made the whole thing into some sort of religion. I wasn't impressed.
Feel free to believe what you want. But I did work with a forum that used vBSEO, and I examined what it did that, for the most part, could be duplicated with free plugins.
I have not used the product with vB4, so I won't comment on that. Your statements deliver a lot of claims, but it would require lots of before and after comparisons and contrast to prove; not just with and without, but with essentially the same content in different forums to see how they gain rankings. These days, I understand you can no longer trick Google into giving you a good ranking. You need a site with good content.
Indeed, when I once visited a forum that supported vBSEO and asked for some evidence of its effectiveness, I encountered a bunch of emotional lightweights that made the whole thing into some sort of religion. I wasn't impressed.
Rob
Well-known member
These are claims that are so easily proven if you do some research, however I wont be helping in that. Your experience at a forum that heralds vBSEO is unfortunate but I don't see how that informs your opinion of a products effectiveness.
A lot of vBSEO's functionality can be reproduced with plugins and template modifications. A lot of it cant. vBSEO's prime reason for take up is the sheer amount of SEO tweaks available in a product that is maintained and well supported. vBSEO does save someone serious about SEO a LOT of man hours and its worth its weight in gold.
Since you are clearly convinced your opinion is well informed and based on facts you could back up your own arguments with some. Mine is based at least on personal use. The fact that much of what vBSEO does can be reproduced in 'free plugins' does not mean it is a pointless product and it sure as hell doesnt mean that the 'free plugins' do the job any better - I've examined some of these plugins and they fall far short of the mark when claiming to be any kind of substitute for a major vBSEO feature.
Anyway, Ive said about all I am going to say on this matter because this thread needed some balancing out of opinion... however you are free to have whatever opinion you wish.
A lot of vBSEO's functionality can be reproduced with plugins and template modifications. A lot of it cant. vBSEO's prime reason for take up is the sheer amount of SEO tweaks available in a product that is maintained and well supported. vBSEO does save someone serious about SEO a LOT of man hours and its worth its weight in gold.
Since you are clearly convinced your opinion is well informed and based on facts you could back up your own arguments with some. Mine is based at least on personal use. The fact that much of what vBSEO does can be reproduced in 'free plugins' does not mean it is a pointless product and it sure as hell doesnt mean that the 'free plugins' do the job any better - I've examined some of these plugins and they fall far short of the mark when claiming to be any kind of substitute for a major vBSEO feature.
Anyway, Ive said about all I am going to say on this matter because this thread needed some balancing out of opinion... however you are free to have whatever opinion you wish.
Gene Steinberg
Well-known member
I'm not here to attack your profession or vBSEO religion, but I did do a before and after source code comparison when I worked with vBSEO in managing someone's vBulletin forum. Some of the check boxes did absolutely nothing, and most of the remaining functions were easily replaced with free add-ons. The emotional responses by some when I ask serious questions also makes me that much more skeptical about the product.
The larger question is whether there's a magic potion to game the search engines so you get a better ranking; that is, aside from a well designed site and great content. I've had my sites checked by someone in the SEO business, and we made all the changes he recommended. I see there's been some improvement.
But the biggest improvements occurred after we moved our domain email to Google Apps. That made a difference, a measurable one, more than all the SEO tricks combined. Google appears to favor their own customers evidently.
The larger question is whether there's a magic potion to game the search engines so you get a better ranking; that is, aside from a well designed site and great content. I've had my sites checked by someone in the SEO business, and we made all the changes he recommended. I see there's been some improvement.
But the biggest improvements occurred after we moved our domain email to Google Apps. That made a difference, a measurable one, more than all the SEO tricks combined. Google appears to favor their own customers evidently.
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