vBSEO Case Study "B" 6-Week Update
November 20, 2007 Posted by Tyler CruzImportant Update: I just realized that I was using the wrong tool to determine the number of indexed pages in my last vBSEO Case Study update posted a few days ago; I was displaying the number of links back to my site instead of the number of pages indexed. I almost made the same mistake with this update!
This will dramatically change the results. As such, here are the corrected results for that post (indexed pages only). The data within the first parentheses is the change since the previous calculation, and the data in the second parentheses is the change since the beginning of the study:
Starcraft2.net
Indexed Pages:
Starting Data:
Google: 92
MSN: 25
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 94
New Data:
Google: 932 (+363) (+840)
MSN: 1 (-84) (-24)
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 736 (+126) (+642)
MMAForums.net
Indexed Pages:
Starting Data:
Google: 4,230
MSN: 94
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 3,094
New Data:
Google: 7,180 (+2,950) (+2,950)
MSN: 119 (-30) (+25)
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 6,411 (+957) (+3,317)
This realization completely turns the results around, as now overall vBSEO has increased both the amount of indexed pages as well as organic search engine traffic.
How will my two larger forums fare? Let’s see!
vBSEO "B" Case Study Background:
Not be confused with my regular vBSEO case studies, my "B" set is a case study of vBSEO running on two of my other, bigger forums. I am running them on my largest forum which has netted me over 6 digits and another up-and-coming forum which has seen significant growth in the past several months. In many ways, this "B" set is much more important as it is being run on much larger and more significant forums.
With all that being said… let’s continue:
It has now been 6-weeks since I started my second vBSEO case study on the popular vBulletin product vBSEO by purchasing two licenses and running them on two of my sites.
Here is a look at the first stats since the case studies inception. The results may appear very obfuscated and confusing, but I suggest you take the time to really look at them closely because the data is very interesting.
The data within the parenthesis is the change since the previous calculation:
PokerForums.org
Traffic:
August 26 – September 25
Google Organic: 7,254
Yahoo Organic: 828
October 16 – November 15
Google Organic: 8,514 (+1,260)
Yahoo Organic: 500 (-328)
Indexed Pages:
August 26 – September 25
Google: 43,500
MSN: 150
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 102,002
New Data:
Google: 337,000 (+293,500)
MSN: 287 (+137)
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 107,890 (+610)
SERP Results:
– = Not in the first 200 results
G = Google
M = MSN
Y = Yahoo!
“Search Term” [Original] [Last Ranking] [Current Ranking]
Note: The SERP tool I was using to check the SERPs no longer works, and I’ve spent too many hours searching for one that works with accurate data, so I won’t be updating MSN and Yahoo anymore, and searched for Google’s rankings by hand.
“poker forums″ [G 1 M 4 Y 2] [G 3]
“poker forum″ [G 6 M 16 Y 4] [G 6]
“online poker forum” [G 4 M – Y 2] [G 4]
“poker″ [G – M – Y–] [G –]
MovieForums.org
Traffic:
August 26 – September 25
Google Organic: 4,987
Yahoo Organic: 263
October 16 – November 15
Google Organic: 4,529 (-458)
Yahoo Organic: 553 (+290)
Indexed Pages:
August 26 – September 25
Google: 4,330
MSN: 51
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 2,962
New Data:
Google: 8,310 (+3,980)
MSN: 2 (-49)
Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista: 4,525 (+1,563)
SERP Results:
– = Not in the first 200 results
G = Google
M = MSN
Y = Yahoo!
“Search Term” [Original] [Last Ranking] [Current Ranking]
Note: The SERP tool I was using to check the SERPs no longer works, and I’ve spent too many hours searching for one that works with accurate data, so I won’t be updating MSN and Yahoo anymore, and searched for Google’s rankings by hand.
“movie forums” [G 3 M 3 Y –] [G 5]
“movie forum” [G 3 M 40 Y –] [G 14]
“movies” [G – M — Y –] [G –]
Monthly Summary
PokerForums.org
Six weeks after installing vBSEO, PokerForums.org saw an increase in 1,260 unique traffic from Google during the past 30 days. While Yahoo’s decreased by around 300, that’s still around 1,000 extra unique visitors each month.
Thus, Google’s organic search traffic increased by 15%. Now, was this due to vBSEO or perhaps just because more posts were made? 15% is a fairly high number though so I’m willing to bet it was at least partly due to vBSEO.
The biggest thing to note though, is the massive increase in indexed pages! Google added 293,500 more pages, with Yahoo adding another 610. That’s over a 200% increase in indexed pages!
This must attribute to why Google’s organic search traffic increased. I think that the organic traffic number might have been ever higher, if I hadn’t dropped in ranking from my #1 spot to #3 for my beloved term "poker forums". Now, I’ve jumped around between the top 3 spots for that term for years, but I seem to now be sticking at #3.
Is this due to vBSEO? If so, this was my #1 fear about installing vBSEO on PokerForums.org. But what may have happened is that I dropped slightly for that keyword, but gained thousands of results for longer keyword terms, which in volume make up and beyond the lost traffic.
MovieForums.org
Unfortunately, MovieForums.org saw a bit of a decrease in organic Google traffic, dropping by 458. However Yahoo helped to make up for that by increasing by close to 300.
Like PokerForums.org, I think that the results might be a bit misleading since I dropped in ranking for my #1 keyword "movie forums" from 5 to 3 on Google.
Also similar to PokerForums.org’s results, the number of indexed pages greatly increased, with nearly 4,000 pages being added to Google, and over 1,500 being added to Yahoo. That’s nearly a 50% increase in indexed pages!
Overall
It’s too early to come to a conclusion with only one update to this particular case study of two forums.
But the results from the first weeks seems to show that vBSEO is indeed a useful and beneficial script.
I’m extremely glad that I discovered my indexed pages calculation error, as it completely changes the results in my favor.
One thing I’m not sure about is if vBSEO is the reason for my lower SERPs. I didn’t see a huge reduction, but a reduction nonetheless. But this could easily be attributable to the fact that Google updates it’s SERP rankings frequently, and I might have been lowered due to Google’s recent crackdown on paid links.
In the end, all that really matters is the number of organic search engine traffic, and this is what will ultimately decide whether I end up recommending vBSEO or not.
5 Responses to “vBSEO Case Study "B" 6-Week Update”
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If you’re no longer #1 for “poker forums”, then that means your competitors stepped up and built more backlinks than you. Your forum is showing up #2 for me.
Nice post. I’ve been thinking about using vbseo on one of my forums.
BTW, you’re #2 for poker forums here.
Number 2 for “poker forums” for me as well.
Great study, looking forward to the final conclusion.