vBulletin vs. phpBB

rushy · 06-22-2004, 03:32 PM

Hi People,

I may be acquiring a vbulletin based forum in the near future and I was just wondering if you had to choose between the two, which would you go for for better SEO?

I've seen the way phpBB can be mod_rewritten like the IMR forums, can a similar remove session ID, mod rewrite take place on a vbulletin board?

If so, can someone give me an overview of what is needed? (sorry I did search for vbulletin with the search function but nothing related came up, so apologies if this has been discussed before)

Whilst I'm on, I'd probably consider a banner or adwords campaign on the forum too, are vb and phpbb the same for adding adwords/banners/advertising etc? I have experience with phpbb but so far have never used vb at all.

Thanks for any help in advance,

thebassman · 06-22-2004, 03:42 PM

I'm not an expert by any means, but a lot of SEO boards, including this one, use phpbb...

disgust · 06-23-2004, 12:38 AM

both can be completely modified to be SE friendly.

I'd go with vb, but it's more expensive.

for vb hacks try vbulletin.org

John Scott · 06-23-2004, 12:39 AM

I have often looked into vb, and but the only way I see of making it SE friendly is doing the "archive" mod, live WHT does.

Is there another way to rewrite the URLs?

samer · 06-23-2004, 08:51 AM

i'll recommand phpbb .. because, like bassman said .. lots of seo forums use it ..

tomcromp · 06-23-2004, 10:01 AM

the must be a way to rewrite the urls in vb cause look ad http://forum.seochat.com example of a thread: http://forums.seochat.com/t10977/s.html

John Scott · 06-23-2004, 10:11 AM

I wonder if that's a custom mod job.

rushy · 06-23-2004, 12:54 PM

right then, so far it looks like phpbb is the way forward. Ok so here's my issue....the forum is already set up and already has a community. The guy can't run it anymore and I'm going to take it over, now then, my problem is the forum is already in vb...it should be a simple matter of loading the db into phpbb right?

;-) I just know that sounds way too easy....

Shawn · 06-23-2004, 02:18 PM

Yeah, if you want to export the db into phpbb, its really easy. Both of them support the process. Also, i agree phpbb's hack for static urls can't be beat.

Shawn

Nathan · 06-24-2004, 07:37 AM

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought vBulletin 3 was suppose to be SEO friendly out of the box?

Shawn · 06-24-2004, 02:46 PM

I dunno, but vbulletin itself is using version 3.0.1 and it's not seo friendly:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

I, Brian · 06-25-2004, 04:36 AM

vBulletin 3.0 is search-engine friendly by default - you don't need any hacks for it - and you can easily administrate the allowed list of user-agents from the admin panel.

The main issues with vBulletin really are about PR distribution and duplicated content. For example, on a vB, every single message has it's own dymanic page, own printed page version, static HTML archive version, at least 3 different types of threaded views, last post URLs...so on. And I'm not convinced that's a good thing.

I was actually using a robots.txt file to block indexing of all duplicated content, but I'm not sure that it actually helps - after all, so long a a bot can see a link then the link gets a vote, so although you can cut out duplicated content, you may still end up with PR being rather badly pushed around.

However, on saying that, vBulletin 3 is an absolute monster of a forum-engine, and absolutely distinguishes itself above all other forum software for it's sheer power and versatility - you absolutely do get what you pay for, and it really is the highest quality forum out there. phpbb doesn't hold a candle to it in terms of standard available options.

As for SEO benefits - phpbb may have better theoretical PR distribution, but it's hard to be certain.

However, an additional concern is text-link advertising - I've taken the gloves off duplicate content and removed the robots.txt files, because I will be able to offer far more pages for text-link advertising. After all, an avertiser wants volume first, and better to offer 10,000 pages for links than 1,000.

Overall, if I was advising forum software for use, I would certainly recommend vBulletin 3.

As for mod_rewrite of the actual dynamic content - I've seen forums that use it, and it's a trick I should absolutely should use, but I don;t actually know anyone who can/will do it, even for money. Until then, I use the static HTML archive function, and use it partly for Inktomi-based engines, and also for increasing text-link benefits.

I, Brian · 06-25-2004, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rushy

right then, so far it looks like phpbb is the way forward. Ok so here's my issue....the forum is already set up and already has a community. The guy can't run it anymore and I'm going to take it over, now then, my problem is the forum is already in vb...it should be a simple matter of loading the db into phpbb right?

;-) I just know that sounds way too easy....

Absolutely way wrong.

I don;t even know if phpbb have caught up with a converter for vB3 to phpbb 2.x

Better to stick with vB - even vB2.x is very very easy to make spiderable.

I, Brian · 06-25-2004, 04:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawn Steele

I dunno, but vbulletin itself is using version 3.0.1 and it's not seo friendly:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

Looks pretty search engine friendly to me:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100...2F&btnG=Search

Shawn · 06-25-2004, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawn Steele

I dunno, but vbulletin itself is using version 3.0.1 and it's not seo friendly:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

Looks pretty search engine friendly to me:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100...2F&btnG=Search

Well to me, search engine friendly means static urls. Not urls such as:

www.vbulletin.com/forum/ showpost.php?p=396510&postcount=1

In other words, search engine friendly to me means this:

www.vbulletin.com/forum/topic-396510.html

Trust me, they will NOT get every single page indexed with those kinds of urls. Therefore, to me that doesnt equate search engine friendly.

I, Brian · 06-25-2004, 02:41 PM

Search Engine friendly means indexable by search engines - although indeed the Inktomi-based engines prefer static URLs, both Yahoo! Slurp and the new MSN bot are absolutely fine indexing dynamic pages - simply not to the same degree as Google. And as Google remains the king of search engines, then that's what counts.

vB3 comes - by default - with the option to have a static HTML archive running where an Apache server is used. That most definitely is about as search engine friendly as you can get. I even know of a few forums where the dynamic content of the forum is restricted from bots, and only the HTML archive is indexed.

Sure, vB3 still needs a custom mod_rewrite job to make the dymanic content static, but so does phpbb.

At the end of the day, vB3 has been written to be as search engine friendly as forums in themselves can reasonably be.

eCommando · 06-25-2004, 04:15 PM

I have also been to SEO forum sites where they switched from phpBB to vBulletin. The moderator on the forum says it's so much better/easier and it's SEO friendly out of the box. There are also have many mods for vBulletin.

JERRY JULIANO · 06-28-2004, 09:32 AM

i have invision 1.3.1 and it def gets crawled by goodle... i don't know if its as good as PHPbb but it is def. getting indexed. how deep down i really don't know... I'd def recommend it though.

Pipeline-Webdesign · 06-28-2004, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JERRY JULIANO

i have invision 1.3.1 and it def gets crawled by goodle... i don't know if its as good as PHPbb but it is def. getting indexed. how deep down i really don't know... I'd def recommend it though.

damnit... ANOTHER directory we have to gear our SEO to?

Eggs & Hammy Part Deu · 06-28-2004, 09:37 AM

I've done good with pHpbb.

I installed the hack...which was a pain, but now it's crawlable and indexable.

Even some of the threads are getting some good PR distribution.