A remark about migration to xf

[Spenser]

Some days ago I converted my forum from vb3 to xf and I want to tell you about my experiences made while doing this step.
First, everything went smoothly. Not one real problem. Ok, there seems to be something weird with marking threads unread (some very old threads were marked unread for some users), but I don't consider this to be a real problem.
The next step was to customize some of the layout and stuff like that. I found it (with kind help from Brogan and some others) amazing easy to customize anything. The strict use of CSS and the template system makes it real easy to do what you want (let's wait for the next update...).

The only thing negative about xf is, that there are some features still missing (from my point of view), but I don't regret the change. Users like xf, mods like xf, it feels way faster and even Google likes xf.

So if you are thinking about a change: don't hesitate, just do it. It works, you most likely won't regret!

 

[borbole]

Thanks for sharing your conversion experience

 

[Peggy]

.... even Google likes xf.

I can testify to that. Google really does like XF.

 

[Spenser]

Today (as the new forum runs for two days) I found the first ne links in Google. I will keep an eye how long it takes in real life to re-index (as this is one thing most webmasters are afraid of, I guess) and post an update every now and then.

 

[Enigma]

Do you have the redirect scripts in place? (to redirect your old URLs to the new ones)

 

[Spenser]

Nope. My problem (as other ones' either) is, that I've been using vbSEO in addition to vb. That makes more than one layer in redirecting: vbSEO --> vb --> xf.

This is - after some testing - at least as complicated as it sounds. By redirecting you must have some piece of software that does all this and ends up with proper xf-URLs. This led me to the decision that I will try to do the hard way: wait until Google will have re-indexed all pages.

 

[James]

Nope. My problem (as other ones' either) is, that I've been using vbSEO in addition to vb. That makes more than one layer in redirecting: vbSEO --> vb --> xf.

This is - after some testing - at least as complicated as it sounds. By redirecting you must have some piece of software that does all this and ends up with proper xf-URLs. This led me to the decision that I will try to do the hard way: wait until Google will have re-indexed all pages.

There are vBSEO rewrite rules that you can use to redirect to the default vB URLs. From there you can use Kier's redirection scripts.

 

[Ingenious]

Spenser thanks for posting this, great to hear it all went well, and do keep us updated as per Google and the re-indexing. As you say, we all worry about this aspect so it will be good to know whether we should just forget about redirection and let Google find the new content on its own. I too run vB3 with vBSEO so face this issue at some point

 

[Spenser]

There are vBSEO rewrite rules that you can use to redirect to the default vB URLs. From there you can use Kier's redirection scripts.

Pardon me, I missed that. Do you have a link to these rules?

 

[Spenser]

and do keep us updated as per Google and the re-indexing.

I will.
Most of the staff on my board love the new piece of software despite it was discussed very hard before we decided to give it a chance. There are some functions missing to them (or just well hidden ), but over all I think it was worth it.

 

[James]

Pardon me, I missed that. Do you have a link to these rules?

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/

 

[Spenser]

After some days of testing I switched from lighttpd (which I'd prefer) to apache2. Using lighttpd I was not able to do some kind of URL-redirecting which made visitors drop significantly.
So I decided to use apache at least as long as Google takes to re-index my site.
I dropped the idea of creating a sitemap with a third-party software as I was not able to find one that was really working.

So, let's see how it continues...

 

[Spenser]

Redirecting old vbSEO URL works just fine now, usercount is back to "normal".
Having seen what happened I really won't recommend to change to xenForo without redirecting old URL. Usercount drops to the bottom, you won't be found until re-indexed.
I use Kier's scripts together with vbSEO redirection found here in this forum and everythin works fine.

Stay tuned...

 

[Ingenious]

Thanks Spenser. That's one thing about migration I'm not looking forward to - redirecting vBSEO - it just sounds too complicated to actually work Plus I'll be moving to a new domain and a new server.

 

[James]

Thanks Spenser. That's one thing about migration I'm not looking forward to - redirecting vBSEO - it just sounds too complicated to actually work Plus I'll be moving to a new domain and a new server.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/

 

[Ingenious]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/

Thanks, I've bookmarked that. Not sure how his is going to work across two different servers but I'll have a sit down and read of all that when the time comes

 

[Spenser]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/

It really works, but unfortunately only with apache at the moment.

 

[CRDeveloper]

I just got my license and Im very enthusiastic about moving my vb forum to xenforo tonight, lets see what will happen. I haven't even tell my members about this change

 

[Deebs]

It really works, but unfortunately only with apache at the moment.

It certainly works with nginx. Currently have it redirecting my vb3, vbseo rewrites to my test xf, running Kier's redirection scripts.

 

[Spenser]

It certainly works with nginx. Currently have it redirecting my vb3, vbseo rewrites to my test xf, running Kier's redirection scripts.

It would work with lighttpd, but I don't have the time to test this. So my way is the lazy way

BTW: Since yesterday Google has started to change links from the old (vbSEO) pattern to the new xf pattern. Everything starts working as wanted. And user numbers are back high.