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My Favourite vBulletin Plugins

October 5, 2007 Posted by Tyler Cruz

There are more than just a handful of plugins available for vBulletin. In fact, there are literally hundreds.

Below is a list of the plugins I currently run and use on my forums. There are some great vBulletin plugins available that aren’t mentioned here, but since I don’t use them I can’t really attest to their usefulness.

Plugin: Members who have visited the forum
URL: More Information & Download Area

This is a very popular plugin, but also one of the most simplest. It displays at the bottom of the forum a list of all the members who visited the site in the last 24 hours (default).

I personally like this plugin because it helps showcase the activity and popularity of the forum, as there may only be 2-3 members online at any one time, but in fact a hundred members who were actually on throughout the day.

Plugin: Super PM (Mass PM)
URL: More Information & Download Area

Like the title suggests, Super PM allows the administrator to send out a mass PM to all members of the forum, or only certain usergroups. Basically this works just like the Mass E-mail option but sends PM’s instead.

Part of why I like this plugin is that you can send a PM to every member instantly. For example, on one of my forums I have 8,000 members, and it takes me around an hour to send a mass e-mail out, and I have to be around to keep clicking “Next”. But I can send a mass PM out to everyone within seconds.

(Note: I had an issue with usernames; downloaded this and it worked: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showpost.php?p=1085543&postcount=219)

Plugin: iTrader 2.0.1
URL: More Information & Download Area

iTrader is a very popular plugin, and is quite a huge plugin too with many files and a ton of features.

Basically, iTrader is a feedback system similar to eBay, where members can leave feedback after a transaction to other members, to help show who can be trusted or not. Thus, this plugin is very useful for any forum where members buy, sell, or trade anything.

iTrader is very well coded and works about as well as you could hope. You may have seen or used this plugin if you’re a member of Digital Point Forums, DNForum, or NamePros.

The one caveat is that this plugin hasn’t been supported or updated in a long time, and it doesn’t seem to be actively supported anymore. However, it does still currently work with the latest version of vBulletin (3.6.8).

Plugin: NoSpam v3.0
URL: More Information & Download Area

NoSpam is a plugin which helps fight automated spam bots by requiring a question to be answered instead of a visual CAPTCHA system. The administrator writes the questions and answers, which can also make the process more fun and themed.

For example, instead of requiring visitors to try to identify those difficult to read letters and numbers, you can have them answer the question “Famous Sci-Fi movie:  ____ Wars” on your movie forum.

I love this plugin because it basically stopped 99.9% of all automated spambots on my forums, as they seem to have conquered most of the CAPTCHA systems already.

So, if you get a lot of automated spam on your forums, you should install this hack. When I use NoSpam, I turn off the visual CAPTCHA system.

Plugin: Geek Autolink
URL: More Information & Download Area

Not many people know of this plugin, but I know a lot of people have been looking for something just like it 🙂

The Geek Autolink plugin lets the administrator specify certain keywords which will then be automatically linked. I obviously use this plugin to autolink certain words to affiliate links. For example, on my poker forum I automatically link poker sites to my referral URL.

Unfortunately, this plugin is not supported or updated anymore, and is quite buggy. Oftentimes words are not linked, and it will never link the word if it’s the first word.

However, I still use it since there are no other alternatives. It would be great if a new and better plugin came out to replace this though, as this is possibly one of the best ways you can monetize a forum.

Plugin: vBSEO 3.0 Gold
URL: More Information & Download Area

vBSEO is not free and costs $150, but they offer bulk discounts. vBSEO, as you might expect, optimizes your forum for search engines.

Most vBSEO owners swear that the plugin has improved their forum’s traffic immensely, and are very satisfied with it. I’m currently running 4 case studies of this plugin on my various forums, and the results are still inconclusive but so far they appear to be positive.

Plugin: vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator
URL: More Information & Download Area

vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator is another plugin developed by vBSEO, but it is completely free.

It creates a sitemap for vBulletin for Google and Yahoo. Apart from being free, it also doesn’t require vBSEO to use.

It’s quite a large plugin, and while it’s not too difficult to install and run, some vBulletin novices may find installation a little bit difficult.

If you run a large forum, you may have to generate the sitemap through your server directly (SSH) as you will probably experience timeout issues in your browser.

Plugin: Google AdSense Postbit Integration
URL: More Information & Download Area

This is a very simple plugin that automatically displays AdSense every X posts. It doesn’t have to be AdSense and can actually be anything you wish: Casale Media, a private ad, or even just basic text.

It’s very easy to install and configure. I’m currently running a case study to see how effective these “inline ads” are, but that plugin itself works great.

Plugin: FlashChat
URL: More Information & Download Area

FlashChat is a plugin that adds a chatroom area to vBulletin. It’s fully integrated, meaning members can enter the chatroom and will not need to enter a username or password as it is taken from their membername on the forum. Likewise moderators and administrators will have similar access in the chatroom.

FlashChat has a lot of features and customization, and some of the features include MP3 playing, private messaging, an optional bot, and even video.

It isn’t free, but only costs $5 for a lifetime license.

What I like about FlashChat is that there are constantly new updates and features, and your original $5 goes a very far way since you get all the new updates and features for free.

Plugin: FlashChat Integration for vB 3.6
URL: More Information & Download Area

This plugin basically integrates FlashChat and vBulletin a bit better, creating a couple links in the forum to the chatroom and creating new options and features. Basically, if you have FlashChat installed you want to install this as well.

Plugin: Who is chatting (for FlashChat)
URL: More Information & Download Area 

This is another add-on plugin for FlashChat and vBulletin which displays who is currently in the chatroom.

This is useful to inform other members to when the chatroom is active.

Plugin: e-steki Referrer Statistics
URL: More Information & Download Area 

This plugin is most useful for if you run a referral contest. Basically it creates a page where members can view the members with the most referrals from a certain date.

Unfortunately this plugin can’t display results from a certain date range, only from a certain date to the present.

I only use this plugin for referral contests.

(Note: The default downloadable .zip only shows if both the referrer and referral signed up after the cutoff date. Download the .php file linked at vBulletin.org mentioned in the description to show only the referral signed after the cutoff date)

Plugin: Top Posters
URL: More Information & Download Area 

Similar to the e-steki Referrer Statistics plugin above, the Top Posters plugin creates a page where members can view the members with the most posts.

It also can’t display results from a certain range, but only from a specific date to the present.

I also use this in posting contests. It is fairly useless otherwise since you can grab this data from the admin panel; it’s mostly to let other members see who has the most posts from a certain period.

Plugin: Specific Period Post Count
URL: More Information & Download Area 

This plugin is similar to the Top Posters plugin, but only the administrator can view the data. Also, this plugin will display the post counts from an exact range. This makes is most useful to grab data once a posting contest has finished since it will have the exact number of posts (as opposed to using the above plugin and having to be online to tally the results as soon as the contest has finished).

Plugin: vBookie
URL: More Information & Download Area 

vBookie is a plugin which allows members to effectively bet on events with fake cash or points. I currently use this plugin on MMAForums.net for members to bet on upcoming fights.

The plugin can be hooked up to work with other vBulletin cash mods such as UCash.

Unfortunately, this plugin is not supported or updated anymore, and is fairly buggy and in desperate need of more features. I’m looking for an alternative but none are available so I still use vBookie.

 

But wait… there’s more!

There are many other good plugins available at vBulletin.org not listed here since they wouldn’t fit the use of any of my communities.

One plugin that I plan on testing and running several case studies on soon is the Welcome Headers plugin which I’m very optimistic about.

Some other popular plugins that I don’t use but are popular are:

• ibProArcade
• v3 Arcade
• Email reminder for inactive users
• vB Ad Management 3.1 (Ad Sharing Edition)
• AME – Auto Media Embedding (YouTube, Amazon, etc.)

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