Getting the most out of your vBulletin error page
 

Not sure if this has been covered already* but here is a neat trick to get the most out of your vBulletin database error page* because let's face it - sooner or later it's bound to show up to the users :)

Why worry about the error page? Good question. Well... an OK one I suppose* I've seen better. But I digress. Currently vBulletin database error page shows a really confusing error message to your forum's users. It stops them at their tracks* it's scary looking* rude and rather upsetting because you can't navigate away from it - in essence* you are losing out on pageviews at this point and frustrating your users. Additionally* the error page does not have google analytics code - so you are no longer recording visits or pageviews to your site.

Here's what it looks like (thanks nasioc for the example):

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/6683/59538163ro5.png

So what do I need to do and why? The database error page is actually a flat html page located at the following URL*

http://www.yourdomainname.com/forums...rror_page.html

You can open this page and edit the html* add analytics code to the footer so you can track the visits as well as analyze site issues in google analytics. You can get really creative with this page* apply a design* add navigation links to your site* add colors and images - next time it shows to the users you can allow them to navigate to another section of your site or do other things rather than be forced to F5 the error message screen. Make sure to retain the " $message " code in the HTML to display the actual mysql error message.

Here are some examples of database error pages:

http://forums.audiworld.com/includes...rror_page.html

http://www.hdforums.com/forum/includ...rror_page.html