I can't resist the urge to vBSEO!
 

It's becoming more and more difficult each day to resist buying vBSEO. Generally my important keywords rank me in the top 30 on Google (thanks to the amazing Zoints Tags), I want the top spot and I see other sites beating me generally use it. My only gripe is the branding free - don't get me wrong, I've not come here to moan about the lack of it, I was just wondering what your opinions are?

I have branding removed from every script on my site, and am currently running about $600 worth of vB and add-ons. The reason for this is my target audience is very small. Basically the 30 mile radius around where I live. If everything is labelled it would be no time at all before a competitor comes along and clones my site (it's happened before with free BB's).

Have you ever seen something in a shop and had the money burning a hole in your pocket? Well that's where I'm at right now. I'd also love to get those sexy URL's - I know it's a little sad but it's the single feature I want the most from the script.

I tried Zoints SEO (who do allow you to remove branding by donating to charity) but I need it to work for my mods and hacks as well. There's talk of a brand free version which I'd be happy to buy at any cost - but as we know talk is cheap, there's been talk of a vB CMS & a vBa journal for years lol. :D

I realise the vBSEO site is the ideal place to discuss, but as you can imagine the place is teaming with pro-vBSEO-ers... Not that this is bad! I just want opinions from a broader audience, not just those who run and love the script.

I just feel if I can't remove the term 'vB' from the footer I might as well have not bought any branding free at all, and this is what is holding me back.

Your thoughts, opinions and information would be greatly appreciated.

Was it worth it for you? Would you get it if you could afford it? Please let me know. :D

Thanks!

You bet it was!I was ranked 40th place and just in 5 hours!5 HOURS!Honestly!I went from 40th place to 9th!vBSEO combined with vBSEO Sitemap generator rules.Plus there were a few SEO optimizations for the forum.I can do that for you for a small fee :p

What kind of optimisations do you mean? I'm just getting into this SEO stuff.

Zoints Tags is doing pretty good though. For example "Range Against The Machine reform" (recent music news) - I am 14th out of about 675,000 (was 30th last night) and the thread was created just a few days ago.

Here is a great guide for vBulletin SEO: http://forum.time2dine.co.nz/seo-vbu...-5-a-2460.html

I am just putting them into a big hack.I just bought a 2 books about SEO and implementing all into one vBulletin hack!

Personally I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. I'd rather have much shorter URLs with variables in them then the huge ones that rewrote urls result in. Plus, if you are indexed already, then all your content will be double indexed which could actually have a negative effect on your SE Rankings in the long term.

Thanks ConqSoft, had a little read, will read on further now.

I will take a look at your modification when it's out Ziki! :)

Kerry, wouldn't Google just drop the old URL's when they are redirected by vBSEO? Surely using that hack couldn't cause me to end up with a worse ranking?

All old urls are redirected with 301 redirects, so this isn't an issue.


As for the keywords in URLs, many people have said that it doesn't help, but I have found that it really does. Here's just one example:

Google Search for "vancosport": vancosport - Google Search

His profile on my cbrxx.com site is second only to his own site. And my site ranks above all the other forums where he is a member, some of them where he has been a member for YEARS. He's only been a member on my site for about 2 months, and his profile on my site has ranked in that location since about a week after he joined.

That's why vBSEO and other products use a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL. The real damange would come into play if somebody uses vBSEO for a period of time, is indexed with the re-written URLs, and then stops using vBSEO.

I still wouldn't touch it with a bargepole though.

I've never understood the need for it, and IMO it is more problematic than helpful.

Also, I like to modify any codes I use (I think there is a bit of original code somewhere on my site, but there isn't much of it left) so encoded scripts are a big no-go.

Personally, even if I was given the script for free I probably would not use it. In fact, if I was paid to use it I still would be unlikely to install it.