to portal or not
 

I am debating whether to install a portal or not. I've always seen them as useless and just another click to get to the forums. What does everyone else think? Are they really useful and do visitors really like them? What is the best portal for vb3?

A portal is a dynamic home page.

It's a standard for every site to have a portal. Microsoft.com has one, vbulletin.org, gamespot.com, etc. etc. Sites that consist only of forums are sort of awkard alone, and a portal makes it look more like a website; thus more attractive. If you have an HTML page as your home page (static content), there's even more reason for your to install a portal.

if you want a site with a news/latest posts/shoutbox/usersonline on the main page
vBindex is the best portal
but if your not then id say no portal :P

Hi,

I've debated over this as well and would therefore be interested in what others believe.

That said, I believe this is a matter of your specific site in that if it is the kind that can use some "highlights" or news, articles, info, etc. etc., it could definitely use a portal.

I'd never personally have a portal these days. Whilst forums do a great job of managing content it becomes monotonous to see the same linear content displayed over again. When I visit a site I really am looking for content, this may include articles, reviews etc and I like to see them segregated from the forums. Sitepoint would be one of the best examples of a portal I like which is seperated (in most part) from the forums :)

i've found that engines prefer having an index page above the forums but at the same time, as a user i prefer something to summarize the site and give me a nice integration, hence what i got up over at my site, just enough integration into the forums to be useful but enough on it's own for me to get what i want outta it :)

I think it all depends on your site. i'm using my forums as simply an "engine" for the main website, so a "portal" or site is very important to me. Another example would be TS3 where more than just a forum is offered, there's extras for the site.

However, if you just have a forum and that's all you intend to have, go portal-less - such as OTC. A portal/site would be silly for this forum because it is just that ... a forum.