Firstly, don't post stuff like "go to this site and ask" or say to buy/use vbseo. I wish to discuss free & popular ways to provide seo for your vbulletins. I'll start off by saying this. Don't use auto tagging addons, as they don't tag properly. Example for this post, the tags would look like this. vbulletin, search, engine, optimization, methods, Code (markup): Better tagging would look more like this. vbulletin search engine optimization, search engine optimization, vbulletin seo methids, vbulletin seo, tagging, auto tagging addon Code (markup):
Tags don't do anything anymore. vBSEO is good, but it's expensive, so really, learn what Google asks for (rel=canonical, sitemaps, header tags, etc.), and maybe you could save some money. I, for example, had very good search results on a MyBB forum (competition was the official Rock Band site, a few phpBB forums, and blogs). All I did was add h1, h2, p tags, and had a free SEO plugin that did the rest (sitemap, customizable FURL, Meta/rel=canonical, and redirects). http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#1 This one's excellent, though. http://static.googleusercontent.com.../search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
Actually yes tags do, do alot these days. For one, if you tag properly, you can help a thread rank higher. I've seen search results for one of my tag pages show up in the top 10 lol. Also, I've noticed that my tagged pages rank a bit better than non tagged pages, thanks to keyword placement.
Here's another tip. When you're starting a forum, take advantage of your signature. Put relevant keywords in it that relate to your site's content. It may sound strange but it really does help. Here's a little tweak that I made for vbulletin 4.x forums as well, enjoy! [SEO Enhancement] Replace "reload this page" to the thread title This little tweak replaces the mouseover text on showthreads so that instead of saying "reload this thread" you get a more content relevent mouseover title.