Integration with vBulletin - vHoist : Garage / Car Showroom

About:

vHoist is a new Virtual Garage plugin that allows your users to share the rides with the rest of your forum!

Our plugin fully integrates into your forum software providing seamless integration without the limits of other plugins with similar features, such as extra SQL querys added to your site.


vHoist Has:

- Multiple Garages for each user

- No Added SQL Query's

- Users Cars listed under their post info

- Full seamless integration into your forum

- Users can share their garages over multiple websites without the need to modify their profiles for each site.

- Anyone that "parks" their car on your website, will provide a backlink to your site for every other site they are on.

- Unlimited Pictures and Rides

- Many new features coming weekly! Facebook plugin, phpbb plugin both in development.

- Will be supporting MOTORCYCLES, ATV's, Boats and much much more!

Sites that are already using vHoist.com:

http://www.GenerationDub.com
http://psaclub.net/forums.php

Install Instructions

1) Download the zip file.

2) Upload vHoist.php into the root directory of your website.

3) Install the product "product_vhoist.xml" (Allow overwrite if you're upgrading) into vBulletin.
[ Plugins & Products ] -> [ Manage Products ] -> Add/Import Product.

4) Visit www.vHoist.com and Register an account. *COMPLETELY FREE*

5) Once logged in, click "Downloads", and redownload the zip file to enable the administration panel. REFRESH this page after download.

6) Add your website to vHoist.com by using the "Site Adminstrator" menu to the left, located under your Member Garage.
* Your site will not be added to vHoist.com until you upload vHoist.php and correctly add your URL to our database.

7) Save the information and Paste the passkey Generated by vHoist.com into your vBulletin vHoist settings.

[ vBulletin Options ] -> [ vBulletin Options ] -> [ vHoist Settings ] -> Website Passkey

8) Adjust your settings in vBulletin for vHoist accordingly.

After you are finished the above, visit your newly installed vHoist on your website. You will see a message saying that you do not currently have any cars parked on your site. Click on "Add / Edit vHoist" and then park your car on your site!

FAQ:

How does the benefit my site?

- There is no "Overhead" added to your site like other plugins, such as vbGarage, because everything takes place on vHoist.com

- Backlinks, an important SEO feature, come from vHoist.com to your site. For example, if one member parks his / her car on multiple websites, you will automatically be back linked from potentially thousands of sites. It's already happening.. http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100390 - This is a VERY important feature and benefit to your site.

- Your users now only have to "Update" their ride on one site, and it propogates to all other sites they have parked too. Now if they have "forgotten" that they came to forum before but parked their ride there, it will be bumped up to the top of the list when they have an update.

- If someone comments from your forum, the user will receive an email saying that someone commented from your forum, and potentially giving you another user to come back to your site! Again, ANOTHER backlink is added on the comment. Here is an example:

http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100000

Here's what a users garage looks like parked on 2 seperate sites!

Site 1 - http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100000

Site 2 - http://psaclub.net/vHoist.php?do=view&gid=100000

Do you get our users information?

We save the UserID, UserName and Email address of users that "Park" a car on your website, so that the user display information will properly show up on your site. This is strictly because users will occasionally have multiple usernames across many forums. Since vHoist.com allows a user to "park" their ride on your site, we need to display their username for your site properly.


For more FAQ's like this, visit: http://www.vhoist.com/FAQ.aspx

Time to install: < 5 Minutes
Template Edits: 0
File Uploads: 1
Products: 1

Has been tested on:

3.6.7
3.6.8
3.7.1
3.8.0

Believed to work on ALL versions from 3.6.0 to 3.8.0, but would like confirmation from users currently using those sites.

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.1]
- Fixed Search not working
- Removed Sponsor Program
- Allowed importing for 3.5.7
- Disabled "member ride" listed under user's name until I can figure out the "slow down" issue
- problem with quotes in user names
- moved related rides to the left instead of right

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.2]
- Added "Random Image" table - show 1 through 10 random garages by your users
- Created a new way to add vHoist to your forum, so you can use a selection box to pick where it goes
- Added "Latest Image" table - show 1 through 10 last edited garages by your users
- Added more extensive options menu
- Added Quick Links Menu
- Fixed "Enable / Disable" Option
- Removed "Members Rides" option under user names until futher testing

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.3]
- Added sorting on title bar of search
- Added some vHoist website functionality
- View users rides from www.vhoist.com/ride/XXXXXX/ where XXX is the ride number.
- Fixed bug for not being able to remove ride

product / vhoist.php files - [1.0.0.4]
- Added User Profiles tab
- Removed this from "beta" since it's been functioning on sites for a few months now
- Added some vHoist website functionality - analytics to be added in next release
- View users profile from www.vhoist.com/id/username/ where XXX is the username on vHoist.com

Known Issues for this release:

- None reported

Other:

This is currently a working public BETA. I will be supporting this daily (well, mostly nightly EST) in this thread and via any problems submitted by email using the contact form on the site, http://www.vhoist.com


*Attention vbGarage Users*

We have been working diligantly on a conversion tool to transfer your current vBGarage users into vHoist.com. The converter is currently in Alpha testing and is not publicly avalible yet.

It is recommend that smaller sites that are using vBGarage start off with a fresh new vHoist account, however, we understand that content is hard to come by and we are working fast to bring this converter to you! If this is stopping you from installing vHoist.com, then please use our contact forum to let us know you are waiting!

....

Cheers .... and .... here goes nothing... this is my first publicly released mod, so if I did this wrong, please forgive me!

[Lizard King]

- Backlinks, one of the most important "SEO" features, come from vHoist.com to your site. For example, if one member parks his / her car on multiple websites, you will automatically be back linked from potentially thousands of sites. It's already happening.. http://forums.generationdub.com/vHoi...iew&gid=100390 - This is a VERY important feature and benefit to your site.

This defination is actually not correct. By adding the same content to multiple sites you are creating duplicate content of your original content which eventually hurts the sites. Thats why your theory on backlinks is not correct and you should correct it.

Yes backlinks are somehow important but duplicate content penalties are way more important then backlinks.

[footose]

I changed it as per your recommendation! Thank you.

I have considered this "Duplicate Content" issue when regarding search indexing and haven't came up with a "total solution" yet, but have considered the following:

Since we are dealing with CAR names and Vehicle manufatures, these pages aren't going to rank high anyway because of information redundency already out there.

I've basically concluded that "1998 Volkswagen Golf" (or whatever year make model..) is likely not going to rank on your site regardless of what plugin you use, since most car sites are "replicating" those keywords anyway.

A prime example would be something like this:

http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/v...?do=view&id=49

1988 Volkswagen Jetta GTI 16v.

Even if you type this directly into google, it is not ranked at all, because it's too common and already considered duplicate. Therefore, this is a common problem regardless of what type of SEO you are using with current "Garage" type plugins, thus not really effecting us. Thats why I've considered these "Backlinks" very "Important".

I was thinking about tracking the User Agent searching the site, and redirecting them to a central vHoist page which would index as the page vHoist.com, but still provide a backlink to the site that is hosting the plugin. Since SEO is kind of an "opinion" based field , unless of course you work for Google, MS or Yahoo, then I haven't attacked this head on yet.

[dismas]

Excuse me for saying so but I have some concerns about security.

So, vHoist never has knowledge of the user's password on my forum? Is there any way that something added to a garage could adversely affect my site?

[footose]

This plugin will never download the users password, or ANYTHING else from your database. In fact, there is actually no communication from your database to ours what so ever. All info is sent via passkeys and ? codes. I save the Username and UserID so that it displays properly on your forum, otherwise, all other user info is entered by the user into vHoist.com

I have integrated a "password check" that I may use later down the road in the vHoist.php file in order to confirm an identy of a user, incase there is a situation that will ever require that. I figured Secuirty might be an issue for some and it's on my list to add.

The password check is in the .php file and is on line 72. Feel free to erase it if you want, it currently does nothing and will likely be an added secuirty check in the future that will be optional.

If you don't like the plugin, you can uninstall it and there are absolutely no database changes or effects. Erase the vHoist.php file if you feel the need.

[Haltech]

I gave it a whirl.. thing i dont like is your ad sponsor... Im very strict on advertising and only allow my vendors to advertise on my forum, not adsense or anything else. We will see if my users decide to go for it.

[footose]

So just a quick rundown on how this works..Database wise.

Each site is assigned a "Passkey". When viewing your site, the passkey will be passed to vHoist to say the user has visited your site. Their username and userid will be entered into vhoist, along with the site they are visiting, which now gives them access to "park" their ride on your site. This where there could be a "confirm identy" option, and I have already thought ahead for this part, thus adding the login-check.

I plan on adding the ability for Site Admin's to Add / Delete / Ban users, but again.. still adding these features as the software itself is Beta. The good news about this type of Beta is that you wont' lose your DB when upgrading!

[footose]

I gave it a whirl.. thing i dont like is your ad sponsor... Im very strict on advertising and only allow my vendors to advertise on my forum, not adsense or anything else. We will see if my users decide to go for it.

Thanks for giving it a shot! You're forum looks highly modified, so I'm curious how you are going to determine where the forumid and catid are going to go.

I haven't decided weather or not the "ad sponsor" will stay, as it has been one of the compliants so far to the software. That being said, I do have hosting and development costs to pay for. If it becomes are huge complaint, I will attempt to figure something else out.

Besides charging forums for say a "usage fee" or a "no advertising" fee, I'm not sure where to go on this part ..... yet.

[footose]

I'm headed to bed since its 4:30am EST here and I work at 8:30 AM EST .. lol .. so I'll try to field any questions or problems tomorrow.

Cheers.

[Haltech]

Originally Posted by footose

Thanks for giving it a shot! You're forum looks highly modified, so I'm curious how you are going to determine where the forumid and catid are going to go.

I haven't decided weather or not the "ad sponsor" will stay, as it has been one of the compliants so far to the software. That being said, I do have hosting and development costs to pay for. If it becomes are huge complaint, I will attempt to figure something else out.

Besides charging forums for say a "usage fee" or a "no advertising" fee, I'm not sure where to go on this part ..... yet.

i added it under my main Speed Forum index. My community is quite picky, so i dont know how many of them are willing to sign up on another forum to list their cars. We will see.. i have quite an active forum with at least 130 on at once through any 18 hr period.