15 replies to this topic

[♥ Adam ♠]

So I've been posting a lot of questions and making a lot of new threads (been doing some searching too).  And here is a collection of un-answered question I still have.

Please & thank you

• How is your SEO rating since you switched to Invision? (without using IPB SEO Modification)
  
• How is your traffic since you switch to Invision (Google Analytics or Mint details please)
  
• Has your user usage gone up, down, or remained the same since using Invision? (links to your community would be helpful)
  
• What do you NOT like about Invision? (I'm sure everyone has something)
  
• I know the home page here is a fluid theme / style. Does the default theme also come in a fixed theme / style?

[Andrej]

No, the default theme is only fluid as far as I know.

[♥ Adam ♠]

Andrej, on 11 June 2011 - 10:09 AM, said:

No, the default theme is only fluid as far as I know.

1 down, 3 to go.

Thanks for taking the time to answer one of my questions

[Rikki]

To change the 3.2 skin to fixed width is one line of CSS, and we've commented it clearly. So it's easy to do

[♥ Adam ♠]

Rikki, on 11 June 2011 - 02:05 PM, said:

To change the 3.2 skin to fixed width is one line of CSS, and we've commented it clearly. So it's easy to do

Thank you for answering my question (still 3 to go).

[joelle]

Where can you see the seo rating of a forum?
Our traffic droped considerably after switching from VB to IPB and never bounced back.
I don't like some minor problems about IPB, e.g. some issues (which I have posted to the bug tracker) about the new IP.Gallery 4.0.x, the lack about a core user activity stream and mostly bugs which already have been reported.

At this moment, I think that IPB has the most advanced forum software package solution out there (but this does not necessarily mean that your forum is going to be successful), which is good start for a new forum launch.

[InFiNiTy™]

I would assume IPB's SEO is not bad. But, even if it was bad, then you would need some good SEO skills to bring your forum up.

[-GR-]

I think seo isn't as important as it is made out to be and there are a lot of forums out there with no seo help at all and completely dynamic urls and they rank just as well as ones with all the latest "supposed must have seo tricks".

Content and page load speed are still the best ones to shoot for.

[♥ Adam ♠]

• How is your traffic since you switch to Invision (Google Analytics or Mint details please)
  
• Has your user usage gone up, down, or remained the same since using Invision? (links to your community would be helpful)
  
• What do you NOT like about Invision? (I'm sure everyone has something)

Seems like the last 3 questions I need honest answers to

(Although if anyone can provide data to the SEO question, it would be helpful)

[B-BT]

The Visitors, on 11 June 2011 - 10:08 AM, said:

• Has your user usage gone up, down, or remained the same since using Invision? (links to your community would be helpful)
  
• What do you NOT like about Invision? (I'm sure everyone has something)

In comparison to what other forum software? I know that since all them years ago since I moved from Proboards my forum has grown an incomprehensible amount - due to the lack of advertisements, the own domain, faster loading speeds and obvious freedom and vastly improved software.

I'm not entirely sure what it is you're attempting to get out of this question however -  the chances of you seeing a decrease in activity as a result of moving to IPB is highly unlikely.

In terms of what I don't like about IPB - at the moment it has to be IP Content, I would love nothing other than a clean and slick homepage, however not being a particuarly talented web designer this is made quite difficult unless you have a lot of time experimenting with the particular application. Other than that there is probably absolutely nothing that I have a problem with. The beauty of the software is that if there's something you want, with a little bit of knowledge on the coding and software it is easy to add, and there is a fair sized modding community here that allows you to get interesting addons that you might not be able to design yourself.

[peaderfi]

There have been some topics about this (particularly since 3.1.x was released) by people who moved from vbulletin to IPB. When you change forum software your urls will change, which in turn means that google and other search engines need to reindex your content on the new urls and disregard the old ones. During this time your ranking will drop (the same as it would if you moved to any software that isn't the original software you used, eg SMF -> vB, MyBB -> SMF etc). IPS do provide redirect scripts for your old vbulletin urls so that content does get reindexed properly (not so sure about vBSEO as that is a 3rd party mod to vB but the base saeo urls they do).

It's old but here are some stats from a user who switched a while back: http://bobschwarz.co...-with-seo-urls/


I can't answer #2 as I've never had  apublic site on any other software


In terms of what I don't like about invision, there isn't much. Now my opinion is somewhat biased as a developer but from my standpoint the majority of the issues I had have been fixed with the release of 3.2 (specifically the extendability of certain areas has been improved drastically).

[Gamerx1234]

I am a huge fan of Invision the only thing I dislike about it is that it costs money

[Ryan Ashbrook]

Regarding SEO after a conversion. It's been my personal experience that every site is different. Some see a temporary drop in SEO performance, some don't see any change at all, and some see an increase.

It all depends on how you go about it the conversion. We have redirection scripts that will 301 redirect your old URL's to the new IPB format, which help greatly. Additionally, when we perform the conversion we schedule a day to do so, then do the entire thing at once. The ultimate goal is to minimize downtime during conversion, and to accommodate for old links so they instantly point to their new locations the moment you re-open your board. If the redirection scripts are not put in place either during or immediately after the conversion, then your SEO will suffer due to Search Engines hitting 404 errors on your old links.

IPB's SEO out of the box is just fine, the problem some people face stems from not properly redirecting after a conversion.

Additionally, the link above is from a very successful big board owner who converted from vBulletin to IPB. The entry itself is a very good read, and provides good insight on a proper conversion from an SEO standpoint.

[• Jay •]

The Visitors, on 12 June 2011 - 12:23 PM, said:

What do you NOT like about Invision?

About Invision?

I'm not overly keen on the fact that I can't allow my alternate contact to download upgrades or patches.  I don't at all blame IPS, I know it's a necessity.  I just don't like it.

As far as IPB goes, I was kinda sad to hear that IP.Subscriptions is being discontinued after 3.2.  C'est la vie~

[rsyvarth]

It isn't really being discontinued, it just no longer developed by IPS. I believe Micheal is taking it over...

[.Ian]

http://community.inv...ptions-manager/