"vB4 is horrible for SEO"
 

I'm going to get an SEO guy to look into improving the ranking my vB4 CMS website. One highly rated guy has got back to me and has told me that "vB4 is horrible for SEO", and that I should consider using Wordpress for the CMS + vB3.x for the forum.

Obviously the thought of changing to this setup is terrifying (especially the idea of moving to a near-obselete version of vB, which sounds like insanity).

That said, the guy runs a website with an Alexa ranking of <50,000. My website is currently ranked at around 350,000. Surely he must know what he's taking about if he can achieve that.

Thoughts?

A high Alexa rate is not the standard to use. If you want your site to do better focus on content.

vB4 is better out of the box than vB3, SEO wise. :)

SEO is so way overrated ... I would just focus on having good fresh content all the time and good discussions in your forums....don't overemphasize SEO my Man ....thats just my opinion....

It is NOT "horrible" for SEO, far from it.

How much money is this guy talking about taking from you?

Like the other guys said, CONTENT is king. Relevant and fresh and dynamic.

Wordpress is crap and always has been, by the way.vB 3.8.7 and 3.8.8 are not near obsolete - they are both still supported. Eight of the top ten largest forums that run vBulletin are version 3.x.x or lower - one of those even still runs vB 2.

One thing you can do to improve SEO is backlinks - link your site either in your signature or your profile, everywhere you can on the web.

Your SEO guy tell you that?

Start with your profile here.

I use joomla for my cms and people in my genre find our site with no problems. I used to use wordpress and quickly dropped it for joomla....

But yes, content, content, content MAN! If you add say one new article every day and plenty of images as well, you will be fine. Make sure you name your images correctly though and you add the "alt" and "title" to each image.

Joomla is a excellent CMS choice. That and its cousin, Mambo.

And you're right it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what platform you're on if you don't have relevant, fresh, dynamic content.

Yeah , I love everything about joomla man, I tried Mambo before joomla too and it was very good as well....

The top 10 vB boards that still run v3 and v2, don't have SEO problems. It ain't the platform. It's the content.

I would even say it's the commitment any site owner puts towards their site or forums...it's not easy running a site or forum..it takes hard work and dedication ...

Over the long term....

One other BIG SEO thing to think about - does your frikkin page load fast?

Slow pages kill SEO and rank. It's documented, it's proven. If you are overmodded and have a glut of images - to the point where your pageload is measured in megabytes instead of kilobytes - you're looking at one big culprit right there.

Test it then optimize it, using this free tool developed by Google's tech president:

WebPageTest

Nope, too many link backs these days get you penalized. This was a giant part of the first Penguin update.

A few good back links on reputable sites are good but you definite do not want your link plastered every where especially in directories and not related sites.

As for the largest sites still using older versions it is most likely because it is an extreme hassle to do an upgrade on a major forum like that. it does not necessarily mean anything but preference.

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I agree with Page load. You can see the amount of time Google takes to crawl and download content in Google webmaster tools. They will also send you a warning if your site takes too long to load.

Remember Google does not see or load pages as we do. I definitely agree though slow loading pages is a Major culprit of having seo issues. Errors, etc are also not good.

In regards to the OP.

Your seo has a decent alexa rating but I would be more apt to see how his sites are doing in Google under the search terms needed to find his site. I say again, Alexa is not a standard to use for knowing how good someone is at seo. In addition, an seo is not going to do anything for your site that will last without content. Content is key.

Many people still try to get away with buying link schemes and they may see an improvement for awhile but google will catch up and you will get a manual action sooner or later and you will lose every thing gained. I have seen people do this over and over. There is no quick and easy fix for seo.

It doesn't hurt to have linkbacks, it does hurt to spam them.

Except, I have talked to alot of the owners of these and the "preference" was, v4 sucks. One of them did "upgrade" to v4 and they rue the day they did.

The truth is, there is nothing inherently wrong with the older versions, as is generally asserted and its proven every day by these big sites' use of them.

Here at vBorg, the standard answer to "why don't you upgrade" is and has been, there is no compelling reason. The highly customized modifications come in a close second however.

Too many incoming links on non related sites or spammy type sites will definitely damage your seo.

As for upgrade I guess it is a personal opinion thing. i have used both and have worked on both and personally i think 4.2.2 is the best version and the best forum script there is. It has many features older versions did not have, plenty of mods, etc.. Many still like the older versions though. I still think 3.8 is good, just not as good.

And when upgrading from any older version to something new and different members always complain for awhile while they get used to changes and it takes time for site owners to also get used to the changes. This doesn't mean one is better than the other but personally i think anything before 3.8 is way outdated and a pain to work. we are too spoiled with the plug in system! :)

One other basic of working with google and bing - do you have a webmaster account with both and have your sitemap installed with them, and updated frequently?

If you like a bloated database and a overall bloated script, sure. It's not my cup of tea. And it does NOT have anything compelling to recommend it over v3.8.x. It reminds me alot of windows vista.

But you're right, other than the above it's personal preferences. I think version 4 is a abomination, but not nearly as bad of one as version 5 is.

There are no seo "experts" so I would gather the reviews of a few individuals who say they "specialize" in seo and compare them... the few that sound the same as a gut instinct will be those who are normally on par w/ seo results. Whomever told you to install wordpress then backtrack to v3 may or may not know seo but long story short even if they do it appears as if they only know how to optimize v3 versus v4 or well to me seems like they are stuck in time tbh.

Yeah - I don't recommend anyone with a v4 installation reverting back to 3.8, for any reason. There's nothing compelling to recommend that either.

You need alot less SEO optimization work for a 4 than you do for a 3. 4 is better than 3 on that, out of the box.

But none of that matters nearly as much as content. Content. Content.

Dynamic, relevant and fresh content is by far the best SEO "tool."

Is this your site:

www.mechanicaldesignforum.com

Personally I would get to work optimizing that pageload first.

Here's the test on main CMS page

Here's the test on the forum

See all those C, D and F grades? Click on those and the site tells you what needs fixed and how to fix.

A big thankyou to everyone for your help and insight. :)

Max Taxable - many thanks I will get to work on that immediately.

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Thanks again Max Taxable, my host has been looking into this and there are plenty of As and Bs now!! The site also seems a lot faster now too. I'm also going to look into CDN on the advice of my host.