Major Additions - Product Review Forums ? Research, Review & Compare Items

Version 1.4.0 has been released to remove the giftery / list it integration of the addon now that service has been discontinued. No upgrade is needed though there have been a few other bug changes since 1.3.5.

Finding Feedback Can be Like a Needle in a Haystack

The more your forum grows, the more of a challenge it becomes to sort through the history and get the full story.

Product Review Forums Brings Structure to the Chaos

As a full-featured product management addon, PRF sits on top of your forum allowing you to create defined products which, unlike individual posts, stay relevant over time. Each comment, review and even product updates filter back into this one spot allowing for a quick and comprehensive overview while the individual discussions rage on as always.

Here's just a few of the many features you'll find in PRF:

• Bring structure to products with established pages & reviews
• Reduce the number of repetitive posts from members looking up the same info
• Increase your traffic with content-rich, seo friendly, product listings
• Drive revenue by adding your own affiliate links to product listings
• Increase the activity stream's value with review integration
  
• Engage visitors with integrated wishlists from Giftery.me

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Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

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QUICK TIPS:
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Enabling Product Forums: To show product details and ratings, each product-forum must be enabled in the forum manager.

Adding Products: You may upload products one at a time through the admin [includes an image uploader using GD] or you can bulk import through XML. You can also enable users to add moderated products through a global and usergroup option.

Product Review Index: To access your forum's product overview go to www.yoursite.com/productforums.php - You may want to add a link to this to your navbar or as a tab.

Customization: This addon is made to be customized. To change the color schema see clientscript/vbulletin_css or dive right on in to the templates and phrases.

Powered by Giftery.me: This mod is maintained includes two integrations you should know about. Both can be controlled through the mod options.

[downloadsuk]

Originally Posted by Domiav

ok, another little problem; on the "buy this product" link when i click on it the system put the forum url before the shop url; for example if i put www.newegg.com when i click on buy this product i will redirect to:
www.mywebsite.com/forum/www.newegg.com that of course give a 404 error.

can also someone show me how to translate the mod? is everywhere into the productforums.php? i just need to revert the text link part into my language?
If yes, i'll release for free the translated version if may help.

Try adding http:// to www.newegg.com

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Ted, on archive view the "This is an empty post" issue is existing too.

Hum. Hadn't considered the archive as it's faded off. We'll have to code around that.

The issue with trying to sync up a post is the frequent changes. Sure it's possible but you're basically rebuilding a post every time an edit / review / post happens and there's really no benefit to the user as it's just a big unstructured blob of text.

- if trying to + Add New Product on productforums.php it gives me the VBulletin message "This feature is currently not in use", have I missed to enable anything?

Yes.

- if quick reply is enabled this may lead some users to using this instead pressing the "Write your own" text

Not sure what you mean

- I still don't understand why there is the "View all reviews on *" link in each review because it leads to the same site again I am right now

Beacuse each post can be viewed individually. If you don't like this appearing you can edit it out of the template.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Domiav

ok, another little problem; on the "buy this product" link when i click on it the system put the forum url before the shop url; for example if i put www.newegg.com when i click on buy this product i will redirect to:
www.mywebsite.com/forum/www.newegg.com that of course give a 404 error.

Given that it's an admin feature we didn't think to include a url validator but now that user's have access to the feature we will validate them in a future release.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Domiav

At last, and this is a feature request, is there a way to add also on the review form the price that a user spent to bought the products?

See post #4 of this thread.

[Ted S]

- Ratings using Rich Snippets see here

Supporting the OP meta data is planned.

[Domiav]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Given that it's an admin feature we didn't think to include a url validator but now that user's have access to the feature we will validate them in a future release.

Originally Posted by downloadsuk

Try adding http:// to www.newegg.com

you was in right, solved adding http:// thx!

[bigtree]

After update to 1.2

I get raw html size=3 in the review now. When I posted the code here it actually resolved

Excellent

[bigtree]

I see, Allow Size BB Code needs to be enabled for the forums

[bigtree]

More suggestions:

Is there a way to distinguish the Review thread created as a "REVIEW"? on the forums? They appear as a standard thread lost in the quagmire sort-of-speak.

Also, would it be better SEO to have the word "Review" added to the "end" of the title page? Something that makes the review better indexed as a product "review".
When I google search for reviews I always include the word review in the search query.

Cheers!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by bigtree

Is there a way to distinguish the Review thread created as a "REVIEW"? on the forums? They appear as a standard thread lost in the quagmire sort-of-speak.

Not sure what you mean... They are normal threads with review content. See part II about titles.

Also, would it be better SEO to have the word "Review" added to the "end" of the title page? Something that makes the review better indexed as a product "review".
When I google search for reviews I always include the word review in the search query

Totally up to the forum and their optimization tactics. You can append every thread with a word if you like but for best optimization I suggest using just one thread per product with reviews as follow-up posts. This gives engines a single block to spider as a frequently updated product entry rather than many different, and often dated, reviews to try and pick from.