How many modifications do you have installed?
We’ve had the chance to work on a few sites now from all around the internet covering just about every topic from sports to video games. One thing we’ve noticed is that almost all these sites have plugins/products installed that add absolutely no value to their site.
The modifications really add no end-user functionality, they don’t add any ease of use bennefit for anyone they are just simply installed for no other reason then to be installed. Oddly enough, on these same sites, we’ve noticed that the performance of the site (the page load times) are substaintally higher then other sites even a site on a dedicated server was brought to a crawl over a modification that did nothing other then execute poorly written code.
Every webmaster, even the newest ones, should have a vision of their site. What they want their site to be about, and how to get it there. Think about what demographic you’re aiming for and what kind of users you’ll going to be attracting. Once you’ve come to these conclusions and have launched your site, there will be modifications you’ll want and modifications you’ll need. Before installing modifications ask yourself this, “If I were a user at this forum, would I sit here and use this feature?” you’ll be able to answer that question and if you can’t, you need to think harder about what you’re trying to accomplish.
For example, if you run a car website some good additions would perhaps be a gallery mod, maybe a timeslip database, and car related mods, you do not want say a recipe hack, or a blog for members to blog in. Chances are good they don’t care to blog, and they really just want to discuss automotive related topics. So please fellow vBulletin administrators, use extreme prejudice when installing modification. If in doubt, wait for it to be suggested even then take a member vote on what to install.
Not only does installing a bunch of useless modifications, clutter your board up, they’ll take up resources to increase load times, and potentially open up security holes if they are poorly written.
I really feel some mods are not needed at all. I have seen some add-ons create some more error every time they run and make the sostware load slowly, only choose the mods really necessary.
Apr 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 am
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