Links Directory + Dynamics

[TheElf]

Hi,

I already have a multiple instances licence for vBadvanced Dynamics but I plan to add a links section to my page.

What kind of advantages the vBadvanced Links Directory would have over a separate instance of Dynamics database of parner sites with links?

[Brian]

vBa Links is really geared more toward hositng a directory of links and includes options for finding broken links, preventing invalid links in the first place, reciprocal link checks, bulk URL submission, a "Link to Us" page, and etc which are not included with vBa Dynamics.

[TheElf]

Not sure if such "reciprocal link checks" and "finding broken links" would be that important in this case.

Not sure if you know our site. It is at http://www.enerla.net (or http://forum.enerla.net if you prefer that, we have a redirect anyway), we use vBulletin 4.0.4, the current front page is managed by vBulletin, same as blogs. We also have project tools installed, and vBadvanced Dynamics, with a multiple instances licence. Currently it is used in http://www.enerla.net/eve-hungary

Since some sites offered some limited link exchange, we thought about 4 major ideas

1st) We link to other pages by creating articles about them, which is more content on our site, we would be able to choose which keywords are useful, and one article could link to different sections of their sites
2nd) RSS based link and content exhange
3rd) Most of there sites are roleplaying games related communities, so we could build a database about such communities, with plenty of information
4th) Since we are mostly happy with the Dynamics stuff we might consider links directory if it can offer advantages

In case of Dynamics some of the navigation isn't fully comfortable, it would be hard to import data to it, and we seen how it doesn't work so well together with vBSEO (I think you should work on that) and facebook bridges (same).

But even with these limitations in mind I am somewhat happy with vBadvanced products (and would also think about CMPS based miniportals if it supports multiple instances, etc) and this is why I consider the Links Directory.

But I would love to hear about what kind of advantages would it offer in our case?

[Brian]

The only other feature vBa Links has that I can think of is the ability to show thumbnails of the websites using a service from thumbshots.org. If none of those features are important to you though then another vBa Dynamics instance may be the way to go.

What exactly are the problems you're having with vBSEO? Both products should work fine together.

[TheElf]

While there are no direct conflict between vBSEO and vBadvanced products, it would be nice to use vBSEO features on vBadvanced generated pages.

[Brian]

vBa Links and Dynamics already have their own settings to enable SEO URL's, and vBSEO should alredy be able to replace any other forum links.

[TheElf]

I use vBSEO mostly for its linkback (trackback, etc) support, and some other functionality originally implemented by it (social bookmarking, etc) and their sitemap generator, their live stats support, etc.

As you guess their linkback, trackback, refback systems integrated with your reciprocal link checking, with the added ability to turn refbacks, etc. into entries in links directory, etc would be amazing.

Also if we would have ability to have Dynamics, Links Directory, etc. pages listed by their sitemap generator (and perhaps if we would be able to have multiple cmps mini-portals added to a forum and get them added to sitemap generator) then we would see a whole new level of functionality.

nofollows (where we need them), canonical URLs, etc. would be good SEO wise.

I know, I know VBSEO is expensive, but I think if you would talk with them about possibility of such integration that would help both sides, and maybe they would help you with that.