Hi Because there is much discussion about vBSEO and there are about 50% haters and 50% lovers I decided to make a case study. I run two german forums, one for patients with medical questions (www.patientenfragen.net) and a forum for parents with (medical) questions (www.elternfragen.net). Both forums together generate a low 3 digit revenue. Google seems to love my patient forum cause I get "huge" traffic (for a forum of my size) already. On 2007/21/07 I decided to spend some money I earned and reinvest it into the forum. I was a vBSEO skeptic as well, especially because of the encrypted code. But I waved my concerns and gave it a try. I bought a vBSEO license for my patients forum and 2 weeks later for my parents forum. I don't want to convince anyone to buy vBSEO or not. With this case study I want to give you an objective view on what is happening to my forum regarding Search Engines listings and organic traffic. I started this thread despite all other available threads because most of them really lag the interesting statistic parts. They concentrate on how many members they gained or how many threads have been started, but this is not the interesting point for a pro or con decision on vBSEO. I have collected statistics for 7 weeks now and I will update this thread from time to time for you to monitor my progress or defeat 20.07.07: Installation and activation of vBSEO and vBSEO Sitemap on www.patientenfragen.net Links used to determine site indexing stats: Google.com: siteatientenfragen.net and +vbseo Yahoo.com: siteatientenfragen.net and +vbseo msn.com: siteatientenfragen.net and +vbseo Program used for determine organic traffic from search engines: google analytics. Indexing stats (Indexed pages in search engines) 20.07.2007 (before vBSEO) Week 0: Google: 12.000 Yahoo: 12.790 MSN: 127 27.07.2007 - Week 1: Google: 11.800 Yahoo: 12.556 MSN: 114 04.08.07 - Week 2: Google: 15.000 +vbseo: 9.570 Yahoo: 12.522 +vbseo: 791 MSN: 80 +vbseo: 2 10.08.07 - Week 3: Google: 8.600 +vbseo: 6.120 Yahoo: 12.546 +vbseo: 1.650 MSN: 119 +vbseo: 39 17.08.07 - Week 4: Google: 9.460 +vbseo: 6.940 Yahoo: 12.539 +vbseo: 2.400 MSN: 94 +vbseo: 41 Adsense: Adsense earnings are climbing nicely. They did before as well, but I am very satisfied. 27.08.07 - Week 5: Google: 8.150 +vbseo: 6.970 Yahoo: 19.084 +vbseo: 8.440 (nice jump) MSN: 90 +vbseo: 43 31.08.07 - Week 6: Google: 9.780 +vbseo: 7.210 Yahoo: 17.452 +vbseo: 7.990 MSN: 79 +vbseo: 47 Adsense: Adsense earnings are still climbing nicely 07.09.07 - Week 7: Google: 10.600 +vbseo: 7.970 Yahoo: 17.571 +vbseo: 7.650 MSN: 95 +vbseo: 71 Search enginge Listings of siteatientenfragen.net Search enginge Listings of siteatientenfragen.net +vbseo Traffic stats (organic traffic from search engines) 20.05.-20.06. (two month before vBSEO was installed) google: 10,601 yahoo: 225 msn: 9 20.06.-20.07. (month before vBSEO was installed) google: 13,312 yahoo: 115 msn: 4 21.07.-21.08. (first month with vBSEO installed) google: 18,154 yahoo: 133 msn: 6 The organic search engine traffic as graphical representation: Y-axis normal scale Y-axis logarithmic scale If you have more ideas about interesting statistics that could be used to fine tune the case study let me know and I will try to implement them if I can. Feedback is welcome StarBuG
So, would you say the investment into vBSEO was worth it? I'm also eying vBSEo, but I'm not sure yet.
I personally think it was worth for me. I really like the url rewriting with all its customization options. You decide how your urls will look. I also like the section targeting for google adsense that is implemented very nicely. My earnings were always rising and they still do. I have a 20-40$ earnings jump each month, so far it is still the same trend but the jumps get a little bigger. It is to early to tell if this is a vbseo result or just my forum getting more popular, but what the heck, as long as it does not hurt If you decide to buy by using my case study as a decision maker, feel free to contact me for my affiliation ID. I would appreciate it Good luck whatever you decide StarBuG
You can wrap content between <!-- google_ad_section_start --> and <!-- google_ad_section_end --> to tell the adsense spider, which part of your content you consider relevant. vBSEO does this with all the content in your forum and leaves out all the unimportant parts like button codes etc. This makes adsense ads much more relevant to your content. Also vBSEO optimizes the code to content ratio by removing all unnecessary code in your page and therefor makes your pages more easy to spider and index for search engines as well as optimizing the relevancy for search results. (sounds a little like a sales letter but it is what vBSEO does )
Your numbers seem like they were on the way UP before you installed vbseo. How long did you have the vB forum before it's install?
Since 05/05/2006 I know that my forum got a lot of traffic before and the trend is currently the same. That is why I do this case study, to see if there is an impact that vBSEO has. Currently there are only minor changes. But it is much to early to make a statement about vBSEO yet from this data
Good to see the positive results StarBug How are your keyword phrases ? are you able to see what ppl are searching to come to your site ?
Yes I can. Top 15 Keywords from Google Analytics: 01. riechfäden 02. patientenfragen 03. www.patientenfragen.net 04. ich liebe schnee 05. patientenfragen.net 06. gleitwirbel 07. globussyndrom 08. klinikbewertungen 09. praktisches jahr bezahlt 10. petechien 11. aggrenox 12. paradonthose 13. patientenforum 14. röschenflechte 15. krankenhausvirus Top 15 Keywords from Google Sitemaps: 01. osteoperose 02. novafeel 03. ärztekammer hessen 04. quaks 05. aggrenox 06. paradonthose 07. hashimoto forum 08. landesärztekammer hessen 09. chanell 10. gleitwirbel 11. funnygames nl 12. gemzar 13. kv "baden württemberg" 14. patientenfragen 15. klinikbewertungen Top 15 Search Query Clicks from Google Sitemaps: 01. theomedizin 02. patientenfragen 03. beinhautentzündung 04. gleitwirbel 05. osteoperose 06. riechfäden 07. globussyndrom 08. klinikbewertungen 09. gemzar 10. polyneuropatie 11. coblation 12. heller stuhlgang 13. röschenflechte 14. keton im urin 15. lucentis Greetings StarBuG
Yes, there is... 14.09.07 - Week 8: Google: 10.200 +vbseo: 8.800 Yahoo: 15.000 +vbseo: 8.260 MSN: 91 +vbseo: 72
How I have found the findings is that the traffic from Google was on a steady increase before the SEO product was bought. Once it was bought, the rate of the traffic increase didn't change and stayed steady. So basically you could have received that traffic without that SEO product most probably.
Yes, my adsense earnings increase around 30-50$ each month. It is nice to wacht Yes, you are right. But I think that it is to early to judge yet. The main reason for me was, that I really liked the way you could format your urls. I earned the money for vBSEO easily with my forums so I thought why not invest it. As long as it does not decrease my results and I get something that I like to have where is the downside? I tried free mod rewrite hacks for vB and they all had their problems. I never really got what I wanted, but with vBSEO that is not. The only downside is the encrypted code, which I still don't like, but I said, what the heck. But I think that a judgment on if vBSEO works is only worth after about 3-6 month after installing. So I will continue this case study to give you guys an objective base to judge on if it is worth for you or not and if it works in the way you want it to work. For me, it does, even right now I am totally satisfied. StarBuG ps: My case study in one post... maybe it is easier to to get an overlook then reading through multiple pages here (no editing allowed). Bookmark it if you are interested: http://www.vbseo.com/f84/patientenfragen-net-vbseo-case-study-15198/ pps: I will still continue posting my results here too, so don't worry
StarBUg when i verify my paypal (in 3 days) and purchanse the vbulletin licence i will set my ads to my vbulletin soccer forum exactly like u did :}
I have published most of my adsense modifications on vBulletin.org. Check my Profile (StarBuG) on vB.org for the links. Then you don't have to figure it out on your own I am glad you like it. Took me a year to refine them to the point at which they are now StarBuG
Good mate. Is it because of your niche though? Do you have any of the urls to your adsense modifications?
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/member.php?u=3512 at the bottom of my profile. Yes, my niche is paying well, but still it increases every month