VBAdvanced can add a nice portal page to your forum and its very customizable. Its worth a try, at least then you can say you tried it and whether you liked it or not. But be aware, there is a learning curve. At first, VBAdvanced can be a little difficult to work with.
VBadvanced is a pretty decent portal but don't limit yourself to just one option. You may find that VBadvanced is hard to use. You can also try mkportal.it this portal is pretty nice and its free or vbportal is another portal CMS for VB. All are different and have pros/cons but you will have to decide which one best fits with your site.
I'm using vBadvanced as a portal for one of my site and it's great. It is a learning curve but you can manage within a week if you are a fast learner. You can use it for other things too like as a sidebar tool and for custom pages.
vBadvanced is a good portal, but only use it is you need to. If you aren't going to add any extra content such as articles or anything, then vBadvanced is pointless and could annoy your members.
If the only section in your site is your Forums, then the vBAdvanced CMPS is a waste. It would be one extra click for a user to reach your forumhome. But, yes; if you have multiple sections of your site; for example : Forums, Products/Services, Articles, etc. Then you can use a portal page to showcase the latest forum posts, top rated / most read articles, best selling products, etc. (just like you would, on a normal homepage). It *can* be a bit tricky to setup/operate for non-technical users. And except for the 'portal' and 'module management'; *majority* of the users won't even need any of the additional advanced features it has. (example : integration of modules with other vB pages). Sidenote: Instead of using vBA-CMPS, I custom coded a simple portal script for my website/forum.
No. Unless you have more than just the forums. I have more than 3 forums but using vbadvance on only one forums just because its not needed on other forums.
I started using it because i also had a blog set up, but it boosted ad clicks but over 200% which was a huge
I can't stand vbadvanced for a CMS or any of their products really I like the look of using wordpress as a CMS or "portal" for forums. It just looks more professional and is a hell of a lot more "SEO" friendly.
I recommend you don't use portals, because sometimes portals can actually decrease your guest rate, because your guests are too lazy to click more than one button on their mouse, its better to make an instant redirection page from yoursite.com to yoursite.com/forums/
yes it did lessen the amount of page views to my forum, but most of my dedicated members are still here.
Male your own template and put whatever you like on the page. php page will be what calls the new template, template will have all content you choose plus your header and footer. There is a tutorial over at vb.org on how to create your own templates.... it's very easy, if I can do it, anyone can..lol
Depends on your niche and how you present the data on your portal page to guests. If you have some shit dump lay out, slopply graphics and things every where of course your bounce rate is going to be threw the roof. Present your data in a nice fashion, and using a portal can be hugely beneficial for you especially if your site is just a forum and nothing else.