I was thinking that vB was best and great especially after I spent a week or so looking into it this month. However, I found the following post …
Quote:
Ahh...you make my point AGAINST VB for me. The problem with VB and it being a paid solution is that you are pretty much forced to keep your code in line with their code in order to avoid being hacked and exploited.
It's INCREDIBLY rare that I see a unique VB forums. So many are cookie cutters all with the same basic features. Very few VB admins bother to change VB very much since it's already full-featured. One of the reasons to choose VB is if you aren't a coder and need a base of mods already made. This is both an advantage and disadvantage at the same time.
I use mybb..I make no secret about it. I was phpbb before and heck UBB even before that (1999?). I used VB on 2 sites both did miserably and the amount of control I had with the code wasn't acceptable. To keep up with the official updates I needed to keep my forums minimally moded. DP is a good example of that. Part of it's success is that it's pretty much default VB and Shawn updates to latest version fairly regularly. The skin is blah and he doesn't add any "fun" stuff. The most common are shops and arcade for VB but reality is they are all the exact same mod.
With mybb I create my own plugins fairly easily. My sites are "unique" and I have been told countless times that my user base loves the streamlined effect of mybb. VB is bulky to say the least. A forums first and foremost are a place to make and read posts. VB has imho lost that direction in the 3x series. They continue to add stuff well beyond what people really need. They add it to the base system to make it worse. Updating VB is a bitch. If you have custom skin...god help you. If you have a lot of plugins/mods...then an upgrade can take you HOURS.
With mybb. I have up to 20 plugins on some sites...all my sites have custom skins made by me. I have about 25 mybb forums right now. Just the other day a big update was released....other than the time to upload the files...every site took just seconds to update. I didn't lose a single plugin or custom theme bit. When I had one VB forums...an update took me a couple hours minimum. And VB doesn't release proper "change only" files. They expect you to reupload the entire package to correctly update. This really pissed me off and really pushed me to leave.
To pay these morons $35 a year to get updates is really an insult. Basically you are held hostage by them. Exploits occur...and eventually they just drop support all-together for old versions. So once you get on the VB train..you don't get off. They could charge $50 or $75 a year for updates and people would be forced to pay. Now realistically the cost of VB is reasonable for what you get. For many webmasters it's a good solution. For me and my many forums...license fees and update hassle make VBulletin the WORST POSSIBLE SOLUTION.
Back to topic...SEO...and what I was getting at is uniqueness. Being that VB offers little in it's uniqueness it's actually imho less SEO friendly. I can take mybb and make a nice custom SEO package for my sites that would create a uniqueness others wouldn't be using. I know this is possible with VB but again..this creates nightmare update scenarios.
What is forum SEO? Why is it required? Years ago I spent a LOT of time doing SEO for my forums. I would take hours making changes to my phpbb sites and doing everything possible to increase it's friendliness to Google. Well guess what...the harder I tried (without blackhat too) the more Google didn't like me. It's kind of like that pushy date that eventually just scares you away...you know they like you a lot but maybe they like you too much and it seems like something is wrong with them.
I have adapted a screw you Google mentality for SEO. I don't really place a lot of effort into the whole optmizing thing. I feel like it's a sham. If you have a good site..good content and good links then you do well. Sure there are obvious things you can do to make your site friendlier for Google but it's VERY basic stuff. Google is definitely smart enough to know good content from bad content.
bah...long post...I hope it makes sense for someone.
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