My journey converting to IPB from vB + vBSEO

[AzzidReign]

I'm going to cry...literally. I don't know what is going on...I should have went with the philosophy..."If it ain't broke, don't fix it". So here's my stats before:

 

Unique: ~50,000

 

Pages/visit: ~16

 

Pageviews/month: 30 million

 

Bounce rate: ~28% (on good days 22%)

 

Avg time on site: ~9min (as high as 12)

 

After the conversion:

 

Unique: <30,000

 

Pages/visit: 5

 

Pageviews/month: ? don't know yet

 

Bounce rate: 50% (has reached over 60% one day)

 

Avg time on site: ~5min

 

The only weird thing is...my most online ever has reached about 3,500 from yesterday and it was set to 15 minutes. On vb, it was set to 20 minutes and reach just below 3,000.

 

My ad revenue has stayed about the same too. My "premium" subscriptions have dropped though by about half.

 

All my url's are redirecting properly from what I've tested. My biggest keywords haven't dropped in rank from all the tests I've ran...so I'm guessing its all my URL's that were getting a few hits here and there and it just added up...but that's kind of far fetched if you ask me.

 

I really don't know how to figure out why there is such a big drop. I think it might be because we are on the default skin. I'll let you know how the stats are once we change. I have someone working on porting over our unreleased skin. From my experiences with designs...it's one of the biggest things forum owners overlook (or they tell me it doesn't make a difference...but the data always speaks for itself).

 

So yeah...I didn't want to scare anyone off into converting. I like the software....it's taking a bit to get use to but these stats are scaring me http://ipbwebmaster.com/public/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif

[AWS]

I had level stats, but, my bounce rate did climb. It took about a month for it to get to what it was and now it is lower than it was.

 

What I think might be happening is people are getting to your site by keywords you never had hits on before and the content they are looking for isn't what they had in mind. That would explain the bounce rate being high and page visits being lower.

 

The skin will make no difference to many, but, some will like a nice fresh look. Things will level out. You're getting traffic by different people that never seen your site because you are probably getting hits from obscure keywords. Check your keywords and I bet you'll be surprised at some of the things people are clicking o n to get to your site. It might explain a few things too.

[AzzidReign]

Well, the new skin is up. We'll see how it goes, but I can say it's helping my revenue out...at least for today. Hopefully I'll see some changes to the bounce rate but from the looks of it...it's not changing so I'm going to have to figure out why that is.

[AWS]

The bounce rate will change. It will take some time. Mine was up and down like crazy and now it very steady just like before before.

[AzzidReign]

Mine is stable....stable at 50%.

 

Use to be stable at 30% :(

[Mike]

Patience.

 

My bounce rate went crazy for a couple weeks. Now, after four months, it is several points lower than it was with vB. One site is still hovering up around 30%, but the other three (established) sites have all dropped down into the low 20% range.

 

I think what you're seeing is pretty normal for a newly-converted site, so don't make any rash judgments until you see things starting to stabilize.

[AzzidReign]

It's just really weird. I really don't get what I'm seeing and I feel there is error somewhere.

 

Now, my Online At Once Record: 3,954!!! This is in 15 minutes time. As I said before, we couldn't break 3,000 in 20 minutes. But still, my uniques are quite low in GA. But then looking at Alexa...it shows increases in almost all aspects. I know Alexa isn't hard coded into the site, but these stats are just not making sense.

 

On top of that, my highest ad revenue was just hit 2 days ago (by a few hundred) and yesterday was not to far behind it.

 

I'm thinking about installing awstats just to double check...b/c these things just aren't adding up. The ONLY thing I can think of with the online record would be all the bots reindexing my site...but then that wouldn't give me increases in my ad revenue...so I'm just baffled.

[Nuno]

Hello AzzidReign,

 

How are you doing with all theses changes?

 

I have been testing the move from vB + vBseo to IPB too and I notice that this move will make a redirect chain ... some claim that Google doesn't like this, so maybe they penalize you.

 

1. Redirect from vB+vBseo to vB default url (301)

 

2. Redirect from vB default to IPB default (301)

 

3. Redirect from IPB default to IPB FURL (301)

 

I'm testing a small code to get only one redirect.

 

I notice too that lately some users are having problems with global_start plugin and all they traffic are been redirected to external sites, make them loose they traffic and rank.

 

Maybe these can explain your dropping.

[AzzidReign]

Hello AzzidReign,

 

How are you doing with all theses changes?

 

I have been testing the move from vB + vBseo to IPB too and I notice that this move will make a redirect chain ... some claim that Google doesn't like this, so maybe they penalize you.

 

1. Redirect from vB+vBseo to vB default url (301)

 

2. Redirect from vB default to IPB default (301)

 

3. Redirect from IPB default to IPB FURL (301)

 

I'm testing a small code to get only one redirect.

 

I notice too that lately some users are having problems with global_start plugin and all they traffic are been redirected to external sites, make them loose they traffic and rank.

 

Maybe these can explain your dropping.

I don't think google minds the multiple 301 redirects... I noticed that after 1 day, Google already had the new URL and I kept my ranking for the keywords I wanted.

 

The global_start plugin you are talking about is for vBSEO I'm assuming? That's what was happening to me before I converted and that's only one of the reasons why I decided to hurry up and convert to IPB. Hackers are able to inject redirect code into this plugin and it was bringing my users that were coming from search engines to be redirected to a site that said "URL is too long for Windows to recognize", or something along those lines. Which, at first, I thought it was MS's attempt at trying to slow my site down (b/c I deal with the modification and glitching of the Xbox 360). So I had multiple people try it out on different OS's and it was the same thing.

 

Anyways, I really don't know what exactly is going on. The other day I almost hit 40,000 uniques, which my normal was above 40,000 and my highs were 52,000. Now it is hovering around 32,000 but as I mentioned earlier, my ad revenue is higher, so in the end, I really CAN'T complain :P B/c who would complain about more money? lol

 

Just to reiterate, my SERPs don't appear to be dropping. I check this every day and at first I saw a drop from rank 3 to rank 7 but everything remained on the first page that was already on the first page. Now I have multiple keywords that are ranking number 1. I just don't know why my uniques are low lol Especially when I check early in the day when I have 3,000 people online (in 15 min) and GA only shows I have 12,000 uniques for the day so far. It just doesn't add up.

 

Sorry for the wall-o-text.

[Nuno]

I don't think google minds the multiple 301 redirects... I noticed that after 1 day, Google already had the new URL and I kept my ranking for the keywords I wanted.

I read about this and the trend was to avoid chain redirect, but your experience is valuable.

 

I already tested some code to make the redirect in the /index.php and I'm able to redirect once from vB+vBseo to IPB furl, so this is not a problem anymore.

 

The global_start plugin you are talking about is for vBSEO I'm assuming? That's what was happening to me before I converted and that's only one of the reasons why I decided to hurry up and convert to IPB. Hackers are able to inject redirect code into this plugin and it was bringing my users that were coming from search engines to be redirected to a site that said "URL isrecognise too long for Windows to recognize", or something along those lines. Which, at first, I thought it was MS's attempt at trying to slow my site down (b/c I deal with the modification and glitching of the Xbox 360). So I had multiple people try it out on different OS's and it was the same thing.

Yes ... I'm talking about that, but at this time no one knows how they do that. There are reports about people having this problem and they don't use vBseo so, this may be something from vB itself!

 

I think I "know" you from a post at vBseo and saw you change to IPB. That was a very fast jump :)

 

if you are who I think, you have a very nice forum with a very nice and original skin ... that is a good start for you "new" forum!

 

Anyways, I really don't know what exactly is going on. The other day I almost hit 40,000 uniques, which my normal was above 40,000 and my highs were 52,000. Now it is hovering around 32,000 but as I mentioned earlier, my ad revenue is higher, so in the end, I really CAN'T complain :P B/c who would complain about more money? lolJust to reiterate, my SERPs don't appear to be dropping. I check this every day and at first I saw a drop from rank 3 to rank 7 but everything remained on the first page that was already on the first page. Now I have multiple keywords that are ranking number 1. I just don't know why my uniques are low lol Especially when I check early in the day when I have 3,000 people online (in 15 min) and GA only shows I have 12,000 uniques for the day so far. It just doesn't add up.

 

Sorry for the wall-o-text.

Well, can these be bad crawlers that google recognise and ignore?

 

The SERP's are good news too!

 

I think people are having more problems moving from vB3 to vB4 than to IPB ... there are reports of people loosing 1/2 traffic.

 

I have some nice 1st positions that pay my bills and don't want to loose them!

 

Just waiting for my low season, until then I hope we will see IPB3.1 and IPC2 so I can make the jump .... vB4 will only be used to buy a vB5 pre-sale :)

[AWS]

IPB 3.1 is running live on now at IPB forums so it shouldn't be too ong before it's released.

[AzzidReign]

I read about this and the trend was to avoid chain redirect, but your experience is valuable.

 

I already tested some code to make the redirect in the /index.php and I'm able to redirect once from vB+vBseo to IPB furl, so this is not a problem anymore.

 

Yes ... I'm talking about that, but at this time no one knows how they do that. There are reports about people having this problem and they don't use vBseo so, this may be something from vB itself!

 

I think I "know" you from a post at vBseo and saw you change to IPB. That was a very fast jump :)

 

if you are who I think, you have a very nice forum with a very nice and original skin ... that is a good start for you "new" forum!

 

Well, can these be bad crawlers that google recognise and ignore?

 

The SERP's are good news too!

 

I think people are having more problems moving from vB3 to vB4 than to IPB ... there are reports of people loosing 1/2 traffic.

 

I have some nice 1st positions that pay my bills and don't want to loose them!

 

Just waiting for my low season, until then I hope we will see IPB3.1 and IPC2 so I can make the jump .... vB4 will only be used to buy a vB5 pre-sale :)

Yeah, I go by jbartle and jbart04 on random forums. Thanks for the compliment on my skin. Not sure if you saw the new skin or the old one but we have the newest one up right now (here).

 

You should post your code or tell IPB about the vb+vbseo -> ipb FURL. That might really help a lot of people out...would have definitely helped me out, that's for sure.

 

And as AWS said, 3.1 is live on IPS's site :D Hope to see the update roll out here in a short while.

[AzzidReign]

What did your vBSEO url's look like before hand? For forums and for topics.

[Nuno]

They are f123/long-topic-name-456/ for topics and f123/ for forums, but you can change the regular expression to match different url's scheme.

 

These only match topics, for forums I'll do it in nginx directly!

 

With some time I'll try to make it work for all topic pages (index1.html, index2.html, etc).

 

After a week or two, I'll change this to the default IPB conversion (showthread and forumdisplay) to avoid checking the url's in every request.

[Nuno]

I'm going to cry...literally. I don't know what is going on...I should have went with the philosophy..."If it ain't broke, don't fix it". So here's my stats before:

 

Unique: ~50,000

 

Pages/visit: ~16

 

Pageviews/month: 30 million

 

Bounce rate: ~28% (on good days 22%)

 

Avg time on site: ~9min (as high as 12)

 

After the conversion:

 

Unique: <30,000

 

Pages/visit: 5

 

Pageviews/month: 30 million

 

Bounce rate: 50% (has reached over 60% one day)

 

Avg time on site: ~5min

Hi AzzidReign,

 

How are you going now?

 

Have you recover?

 

Nuno

[AWS]

I think his site is doing fine now. It looks like it is anyway.

[AzzidReign]

Over the last week, about a month later:

 

Unique: Between 33-41k (still not up to where it use to be)

 

Pages/visit: 7.5

 

Pageviews/month: 10 million over the last month

 

Bounce rate: 39%

 

Avg time on site: 9min 30 sec (yesterday was up to 10:40)

 

So I am seeing improvement but I'm still trying to get the bounce rate lower as well as getting the pages/visit higher. I figured by getting the bounce rate lower, the p/v would raise...it has but not by much :(

 

The good news is though, with the new google pr update, I have a lot of PR4 and PR3 forums, as well as threads. I haven't had a pr4 for a few years now. Even though people say it doesn't matter much, it seems to have boosted a few of my SERPs from the #2 spot to the number #1 AND #2 spot.

 

And going back to the redirects that we were talking about earlier. I am noticing that I do have a lot of links that are in the format of the OLD vBulletin URL scheme. I figured I would point that out now...hopefully it's not having much effect on my SERPs.

[AzzidReign]

A little over a week later.

 

Unique: Between ~35k

 

Pages/visit: 6

 

Bounce rate: Keeps climbing and is up to 45%

 

Avg time on site: Keeps declining and is down to 7 minutes.

 

So, things seem unstable now and looking worse :(

[AzzidReign]

Needless to say, I am continually being pissed off with this. I wish I wouldn't have converted and just stuck it out with 3.8 now.

 

A LOT of my high ranking, high traffic keywords have been dropped. Not just a few spots, but gone...totally. I don't understand it. I have tons of backlinks for it with proper anchor text and it's all gone. 2 keywords were ranked number 1...now they are gone.

 

No wonder I'm losing so much traffic now.

[AWS]

I wonder what is causing the problem. I am seeing the exact opposite. I had a slight drop on both sites a couple weeks after the conversion, but, it went back to normal a week later and now it's building nicely.

[AzzidReign]

Google is acting realllllly weird for my site. My site is now showing up for one of the keywords that was totally lost, but not for the link I want it to be. Instead of linking to the section dedicated to the keywords, it's linking to my forums or homepage. It's like all my separate forum categories aren't being indexed properly.... I noticed that for another set of keywords. I guess I'm going to see wtf is going on.

[Nuno]

The global_start plugin you are talking about is for vBSEO I'm assuming? That's what was happening to me before I converted and that's only one of the reasons why I decided to hurry up and convert to IPB. Hackers are able to inject redirect code into this plugin and it was bringing my users that were coming from search engines to be redirected to a site that said "URL is too long for Windows to recognize", or something along those lines. Which, at first, I thought it was MS's attempt at trying to slow my site down (b/c I deal with the modification and glitching of the Xbox 360). So I had multiple people try it out on different OS's and it was the same thing.

Hi,

 

Some people loosed 1/2 and 2/3 of visitors because of this and are trying to recover after a month, even without a switch, so your problem can be related to this and amplified by the conversion.

 

I have read lots of threads and most are going well.

 

I haven't moved yet because spring and summer are my best months and there are some mods I need to have before going live ... and since 3.1 is around the corner, I'll wait patiently until then.

[AzzidReign]

So now it's over a month later since my last data, here is my new data:

 

Old:

 

Unique: Between ~35k

 

Pages/visit: 6

 

Bounce rate: Keeps climbing and is up to 45%

 

Avg time on site: Keeps declining and is down to 7 minutes.

 

New:

 

Unique: Low: 28,000; High: 41,000

 

Pages/visit: 6.66

 

Bounce rate: 42%

 

Avg time on site: 8:53

 

So not much has really changed. Avg time seems to be going up a bit, P/V barely up, uniques staying the same. The only good thing is, my ad revenue is still kick ass.

 

Not sure if I mentioned this when the PR update rolled around but now I have a few pages that are PR4 and tons that are PR3 and then the rest is PR2 unless it's a new post. I know PR doesn't matter much when it comes to SERPs but it does matter to a google bot b/c the higher the number the deeper the crawl. The deeper the crawl, the more pages I get indexed which should be potential high SERPs for long tail keywords.

[AWS]

Things seem to have calmed down. Might be time to remove the old redirects. That could hasten the removal of the old url's from google. I know I still have a few of the old ones left over and I don't think they do any good any longer.

[AzzidReign]

Not quite a month but I figured I would update everyone. The last few days the trends are finally looking better and closer to what they were prior to the conversion. The pages/visit are still not as good...

 

2 months ago:

 

Unique: Between ~35k

 

Pages/visit: 6

 

Bounce rate: Keeps climbing and is up to 45%

 

Avg time on site: Keeps declining and is down to 7 minutes.

 

Less than a month ago:

 

Unique: Low: 28,000; High: 41,000

 

Pages/visit: 6.66

 

Bounce rate: 42%

 

Avg time on site: 8:53

 

This months stats are kind of scewed b/c we were being DDoSed like a mother effer...we still are but it took us a while to get our DDoS proxy working properly with our server. It's been doing good for the last week or so now and the stats are improving b/c of it!!

 

This month:

 

Unique: Low: 25,000 (b/c the site was down for HOURS during our peak time); High: 47,000

 

Pages/visit: 7.07 but this week is just under 8

 

Bounce rate: 39% for the month but the last week has been around 35-37% - Getting closer to that 30% mark...then hopefully I can break into the upper 20's like I was before

 

Avg time on site: 9:54 but the last week has been a little over 11 minutes - Again, getting closer but it isn't that 18 minutes it use to be.

 

So the site's stats are finally getting back to somewhat normal. I'm excited that IPB3.1 just came out the other day. I'm waiting to see how bug fixes go before I go installing it. Once it's installed, hopefully with all the SEO edits they have done with the core, I should see even better results :D

 

The site revenue is still doing awesome. What I made in the site last year is less than half of what I have made so far this year so I'm hella stoked that I've already doubled++ my income from last year so I can't complain too much about my stats and trends. I just wonder what it would be like if I continued with vb3.8...