Java (Jforums) vs PHP ones (VBulletin)

[SilkCharm]

Hi, one of my clients wants to use JForums because they heard Java allows for better searches on Google (no I'm not sure what this means either). Has anyone heard this before? I think that they think their forum threads will show up higher on Google searches.

In general is there any overall benefit to PHP versus Java? I'm looking to possibly build a case for Vbulletin instead of JForums. One that I can think of is that a number of firewalls get iffy about java. Any others? Thanks in advance!

[Andy Huang]

Google (and other search engines) does not care what scripting language you are building your web content in. This applies to all webpages beyond just forums, or blog, or anything. You may wish to direct your client to Google's Webmaster Help for more reading.

It is probably worth while mentioning that JAVA is better than PHP at some things, while PHP is better than JAVA at others. What really boils down at the end of the day is what your clients' needs are, and whether or not it was met; not what technology is used.

[jasonlitka]

If someone is building software with Java alone then they shouldn't expect their site to get indexed at all; spiders don't use browser plugins.

On the other hand, if they're using JSP, then there's really no difference between using that, PHP, ASP, etc. for your back-end scripting because all that is delivered to the client is HTML.

[SilkCharm]

Ah thanks guys

While it doesn't really give me an argument for pulling them away from JForums, it does at least make me feel a bit better even though they aren't going to use vBulletin. Thankyou much appreciated!

[harmor]

When I search google for something I don't think I ever gotten a Java based forum.

[feldon23]

JForum seems to a clone of phpBB rewritten in JSP. They have the same graphics, buttons, features. Not sure of what benefit it is really?

[Wayne Luke]

When I search google for something I don't think I ever gotten a Java based forum.

How do you know? By the time a JSP page gets to the browser, it looks just like a PHP page. Extensions mean nothing. I have been to sites where the extension for their forum files was .forum and the extension for their shop files was .shop.

Hi, one of my clients wants to use JForums because they heard Java allows for better searches on Google (no I'm not sure what this means either). Has anyone heard this before? I think that they think their forum threads will show up higher on Google searches.

No truth to this really. As stated above Google works equally well with all programming languages because the results all boil down to standard XHTML.

From my experience PHP is more readily available than JSP on hosting plans. Those plans are less expensive as well with JSP often bringing a premium. There seems to be a wider variety of applications available for PHP as well. I would say that if they plan on integrating their forum with other JSP applications than JForum might be the better choice. As the web developer though, you should encourage them to go with something your more familiar with.

Make sure that JForum has the features they need though. Do they need subforums? attachments? rich-text editing? calendar? All of those are available in vBulletin.