What you did wrong was follow instructions for an article written for vBulletin 3.x when you have vBulletin 4.x. Please see the vBulletin 4 articles section for a comparable article- there are some significant differences in programming between the two when it comes to templates.

@#%@#

Took me forever googling around to find this. Could I please ask if you can point me in the right direction?

It was the very first thread in the VB4 Articles Section:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=228112
[HOW TO - vB4] Create your own vBulletin page.

WOW!!! Good to know. I have thousands of new pages created on my 3.x site. I guess I'm now stuck with it instead of upgrading to 4.x.

Thousands? That is impressive...

But yeah, the way templates are called (and cached) changed... Once you get the hang of it it's not too bad but it will mean a manual edit to every php file you have that calls a template (which is probably all of them.)

Well, I have been running my site for over 10 years now. Converting the site over to the new format has been a heck of a job with a little still to go. I'd hate to start that process all over again. If I did would the required changes be required only in the php file or the template as well?

Both. Honestly, in your situation, I'd recommend using either the CMS (so hopefully you'd be converting one last time only) or creating just one framework page that pulls it's content data from a custom database table. This way, it'd be easier for future conversions. But, of course, I don't know what kind of pages we're talking about.

VB4 uses table-less design so depending on how much existing code you rely on in your templates could mean a lot of work. Also all template conditionals and variable uses in templates has changed.

We are working on a new setup that will draw content from a database but even that is taking time to assemble. For now I am doing it the hard way. My web site collects photos of and information on every Lamborghini car ever built so there are 20,000+ potential pages to create. Database will be simpler once it is all ready to go.

Anybody know how to make these pages searchable in google or other search engines? I've added the meta data to each of the templates for the pages I've created. However, I get no results when I search in google even when I enter the entire URL.

Thank you, any help is greatly appreciated.