vbSEO on an existing forum

If I have a forum that has been around for years, and all of the sudden the link structure changes as a result of installing vbSEO, could it actually have the reverse effect, and cause me to lose traffic at least in the short term?

 

I haven't done research to find out, but there may be some good information on the vBSEO forum: www.vbseo.com/forums

I think it might adversely affect you in the short term, but in the long term, you may come out on top (meaning you are in a better position than you were before you added vBSEO).

What are your current rankings like, and are you satisfied?

 

I just wanted to get an opinion outside of their site. I know some of the threads can be very controversial, and you guys seem to be experts in vBulletin (at least compared to me).

As far as traffic, we get plently, but it would be interesting if there are any published studies. We have a high pagerank, but possibly the internal pages of the forum could do better rankings wise.

 

What about SERPs for your key terms and words? How do you rank in that aspect?

 

Any change in your link format after years is going to affect your SERPs, at least initially.

However the impact of installing vBSEO should be minimal because unless you move the forum to a new directory or domain name, all your old links will still work. The problem will be that your new links will split your scores between the old and new links. This will decrease your rankings, at least at first. vBSEO might have a mechanism to 301 rewrite those old links to the new URLS though. If so, than over time the indexes will update your old links and you'll regain your ranking.

 

It does 301 Redirect them. Personally, I'd just wait it out a little longer and see what vB4 offers in terms of SEO rewritting.

Don't believe the hype there. Their forum is on large marketing gimick and if you want to see how it works this is it. Just about every thread you read there goes one of two ways...

Customer 1: I achieved overnight SEO increase.I now make 400% more in one day!!!
vBSEO: Great, behold the power of vBSEO.

Customer 2: Hey I installed this 3 months ago, my pages still aren't indexed, i've lost all my traffic and rankings from first page have went to the 5th page!
vBSEO: Submit your site for a review, and give it another 3 months. Just wait the power of vBSEO will strike soon!

 

Yes, it can have a negative impact on your traffic and your ranking.

You could setup a 301 redirect, which I think vbseo has built in. But, its going to take weeks before all of the URLs are rewritten in the search engines. If you are submitting a sitemap to the search engines, that can help out a lot.

I have a self hosted wordpress blog that ranks around number 4 or 5 in google for its targeted keywords. In the past year I have changed the link structure twice. And neither time did the site lose its ranking. But then again, this blog submits a sitemap to google daily and all of the changes were 301ed. So google registered the changes pretty quick. The last time I made a change to that blog, I think it slipped back 1 spot. So it went from #4 to #5 - which is where its at right now.

 

I think I will hold off on this then. My forums have made it this far. Thanks for your comments.

 

If you want to do it, then do it. The affects aint gonna last forever. Just take the leap and get it over with.

 

Before my website was hacked I did this - installed vbSEO to an existing board and I did notice a small set-back but within no time things were back to normal with it.

I think it is totally worth it and if you do it now things will be sorted out within no time.