FordForumsOnline.com vBulletin 3.8 to xenForo Case Study

Discussion in 'Community Showcase' started by BamaStangGuy, Jul 29, 2013.

  1. Code Monkey

    Code Monkey Regular Member

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    Looking good on XenForo.
     
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  2. oldsmoboi

    oldsmoboi Regular Member

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    What are some of the user engagement features you focus on as being better? I run an IP.Board and this is an area they are lacking I feel.
     
  3. Gregman

    Gregman Regular Member

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  4. KW802

    KW802 Regular Member

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    @Brandon @BamaStangGuy For your PhotoPlog vB to XF converts, there is also XenGallery from Sonnb that now has a PhotoPlog importer (http://www.sonnb.com/resources/sonnb-xengallery.13/update?update=41). I have licenses now for both XenGallery and XenMediaGallery and there are fundamental differences between them (XMG is more akin to a traditional gallery like we would've used in the vB days while XenGallery is more 'social' oriented in that nearly everything is centered around user albums instead of categories). Sonnb has been pretty fast responding to people when it comes to questions about importers & requests. If you're thinking of XMG, make sure you create an import log table when importing vB! The XMG importer relies upon it for the user ID mapping.

    Coming back to the topic... the site is looking good on XF! Surprised though to see a red color scheme instead of using Ford blue (or I am just really old in connecting Ford to the blue oval logo).
     
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  5. GTB

    GTB Regular Member

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    Site looks really good now running that theme on XF, miles better looking than when seeing it on vB before.
     
  6. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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    Thanks fo rthe reply. I have seen both and went with Chris' because of it being more traditional. Just waiting on 1.3 right now. I also always do the import log when doing imports so that is no problem.
     
  7. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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  8. Code Monkey

    Code Monkey Regular Member

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    Looks good.
     
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  9. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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  10. thebrad

    thebrad Regular Member

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    Its looking very good now, xenforo is such a nice piece of software if you ask me the red really suits the forum and the amount of activity!, good job!
     
  11. Code Monkey

    Code Monkey Regular Member

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    It's looking nice over there now. Heck I would join if I wasn't a Chevy guy. :D
     
  12. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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  13. TrumpetMaster

    TrumpetMaster Regular Member

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    Looking good and the more I see xenforo sites the more I think about switching one of mine. I bought a ford site several years ago. fordcustoms.com and then rebranded to fordmotorforum.com as I thought that might appeal to more Ford owners. It had some activity but was trashed and on life support. I tried to bring it back but failed and sold it. If I did it over again today I might have a better shot but was never into Fords and found it hard to generate discussion or get new members to "buy in" when it wasn't model specific.

    Anyway good luck with it! I'm interested to see how it goes and how did you triple your income? Did the 300x250 ad help? Looks like a good spot.
     
  14. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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    I was running the same ad placements on vBulletin before changing to xenForo. However, there were quite a few issues with the vBulletin layouts. For example, it was using vBadvanced so that was its root url. Now the forum itself is the root url. Better content on the home page has helped. I also think the new style has helped a bit as well along with the faster page loads with xenForo.
     
  15. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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    Not quite a full 30 days worth of data but I will report back in a few days with another screenshot.

    There was a bit of traffic drop but this was mainly due to the Recalls and Bulletins databases not being ported over immediately. Those have been ported over now and traffic is steadily rising back.

    ffo.PNG

    Income is fantastic. Well on our way to making our money back within a year of purchase.

    Note that we still haven't imported all of the user albums from the vBulletin database since Chris has not released 1.3 of his media gallery yet. That accounts for some of the traffic drop as well.

    Overall, this is one of the best conversions I have done as far as being happy with the outcome.

    Might have another great case study coming up as well :)
     
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  16. BoostN

    BoostN Regular Member

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    So much awesome in this thread. Keep us updated!
     
  17. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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  18. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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    <redacted>
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2013
  19. BamaStangGuy

    BamaStangGuy Administrator

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    Full 30 days worth of Analytics

    analyticsffo.PNG
     
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  20. fords8

    fords8 Regular Member

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    Nice work on the site. As you can see from my user name, I am a Ford guy too.
     

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