Forum SEO: vBulletin/vbSEO vs IPB with SEO URL’S

I needed to upgrade PHP on my servers. I run a mix of Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 servers using IIS. I had been doing quit a bit of research the last couple weeks. My research taught me a few things. PHP for Windows has evolved to the point that it can run as well on Windows as it does on Linux servers without the errors we used to see. I’m not going to get into them since anyone that has been running Windows Servers with PHP for any length of time will be able to tell you about the errors that were common.

Now on to the steps I took to increase the performance of my PHP websites running on Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 with IIS. At the end of the article I’ll supply links to the downloads I used.

I am getting ready to convert Computer Help Forums from vBulletin to IPB. This is in a way a more complex change because the users use the album feature extensively. We also have a downloads section so those will have to moved over to IP.Downloads.

I am starting this to document the steps I take so it can serve as a tutorial for others that are going to switch from vBulletin to IPB. The vBulletin version running is 3.8.4. The version of IPB that will be installed will be 3.0.5. I will also install IP.Downloads, IP.Gallery, IP.Blog and IP.Content.

Watch this post to follow the progress of this vBulletin to IPB conversion. Each step and procedure as well as post conversion configuration will be outlined so that anyone that  wants to convert from vBulletin to IPB will have a set of procedures to follow.

Read on to see the steps I took to convert Computer Help Forums from vbulletin to IPB.

I have one site running the new vBulletin Gold Suite. The site was closed so I decided it would be a perfect test bed. It had a few users and a few posts before I closed it down. I opened it back up and upgraded the old database to vBulletin 4. If you want to check out the site before you finish reading you can find it at http://serverhelpforum.com.

The install on of vBulletin 4 Gold went well. The vBulletin CMS part did give me an out of memory error. More on that later. Once we got past that everything looked good and seemed to work well. Read on to get to the good, the bad and the ugly.

If you’ve been following me @ twitter or on this site you know I am converting my sites slowly from vBulletin to IP.Board. I did upgrade one vBulletin license to vBulletin Suite. The decision to convert had nothing to do with the software. It had everything to do with the way that Internet Brands, the owner of vBulletin, treated long time supporters of the product. Since converting my first 3 sites I found that being loyal to vBulletin made me keep a blind eye on other products. Now no matter what happens with vBulletin 4 I doubt I’ll ever switch back. IPB and their suite of products is light years ahead of whatever IB can come up with. Damn shame to see the market leader, vBulletin, taking a back seat to IPB.

I did download the vBulletin suite and I did install it using a copy of one of my sites. The rush to get it out the door to stop the exodus of customers to IPB has show how unfinished this beta is. Sure it is called a beta, but, in reality it at best alpha quality. The CMS does not even work on Windows Server if you use IIS. Here are a few bugs I have found and yes I did have the courtesy to post them in the bug tracker or confirm ones that other posted.

All my community sites are powered by vBulletin. I’ve been using vBulletin for 9 years. I was an early adopter after the mess that happened with UBB in the pre-Infopop days. I never thought the day would come when I would have to move to another forum package. With the recent events at vBulletin like the presale fiasco where they want you buy or upgrade to a product that isn’t even available yet to the censorhip and banning of long standing customers on their forum I saw enough. IB doesn’t seem to have a clue or care about customer loyalty.

My original plan was to test vBulletin 4 on one site and then decide if I would upgrade the rest of the sites. After seeing what happened when Internet Brands upgraded to vBulletin 4 and after seeing it in action I changed my plan. All my sites will now be converted to IP.Board. vBulletin 4 offers me nothing. IP.Board on the other hand has features I’ve longed for. OpenID and Windows Live as well as Facebook signon modules. Then there is IP.Converge to easily integrate users across different software platforms.

Anyway this post is to track the progress of the first vBulletin to IP.Board conversion.