Before I Make A Switch From vB+vBSEO -=> XenForo ...

[TheBigK]

Alright, I've already been through several threads but not able to find the specific answers to the nagging question I've in my mind since the inception of XenForo. I've done the migrations on my test server and think I'm comfortable handling XF.

The biggest obstacle in making 'that final decision' is whether we'll lose our traffic + ranking after migrating to XenForo! We 'suffered' a *lot* when we moved from vB 3x to 4x and do not want to repeat history.

I absolutely love vBSEO and the good things it does. I also know that XF handles SEO quite awesomely.

Can someone point me to the threads that answer my question and if possible, share first hand experience of migrating an established forum (vB+vBSEO) to XenForo? How did Google respond? How's the traffic 1,2,3 and 5 weeks after the move?

 

[Slavik]

Alright, I've already been through several threads but not able to find the specific answers to the nagging question I've in my mind since the inception of XenForo. I've done the migrations on my test server and think I'm comfortable handling XF.

The biggest obstacle in making 'that final decision' is whether we'll lose our traffic + ranking after migrating to XenForo! We 'suffered' a *lot* when we moved from vB 3x to 4x and do not want to repeat history.

I absolutely love vBSEO and the good things it does. I also know that XF handles SEO quite awesomely.

Can someone point me to the threads that answer my question and if possible, share first hand experience of migrating an established forum (vB+vBSEO) to XenForo? How did Google respond? How's the traffic 1,2,3 and 5 weeks after the move?

As long as you set up your redirect scripts correctly you should be fine.

There are a couple of cases floating around here of larger boards moving over and the results have all been positive.

Soon as we get post edit history and the big board search out, the p8ntballer forums will also be moving over

 

[Deebs]

I used to run VB3.8 and a customised vbseo url pattern. Migrated to XenForo, added some redirects to nginx and used Kier's redirection scripts and finally submitted a new sitemap. Old urls are being redirected with 301 (so Google updates the cache). So far things are looking ok, it will be 2 weeks since I migrated come this Thursday.

 

[Paul B]

You are aware that there is a specific vBSEO redirect script?

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

 

[Floris]

Site with 300k posts converted from vB4 to XenForo 1.0.1 went from PR3 to PR2, and has been PR4 since then.
Using vBSEO redirect scripts.

 

[Claudio]

You are aware that there is a specific vBSEO redirect script?

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

I was looking for this, thank you

but does exist a comparison bewteen the seo of vbseo and xenforo?
In case of vbulletin, vbseo is consider very import and in lot of cases it increased the visitors of different websites.

I also use vbseo, but I would like to know if Xenforo default configuration gives better results with SEO than the vBSEO redirect script (with vbseo default settings)

 

[TheBigK]

You are aware that there is a specific vBSEO redirect script?

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

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this!

As long as you set up your redirect scripts correctly you should be fine.

There are a couple of cases floating around here of larger boards moving over and the results have all been positive.

Soon as we get post edit history and the big board search out, the p8ntballer forums will also be moving over

Thanks for boosting my confidence

Site with 300k posts converted from vB4 to XenForo 1.0.1 went from PR3 to PR2, and has been PR4 since then.
Using vBSEO redirect scripts.

That's quite amazing! We were at PR6 when our vB3 got hacked and we thought it would be a good move to vB4. The site's at PR5 since last several months.

By the way, are there any negative stories? I'm aware that the site traffic goes down (even with redirects in place) for few days (maybe weeks) and then goes up afterwards. However, there are several provisions vBSEO has - like the RRs; which worked super for our forums. I'd really love to listen to the negative stories and know what 'may' go wrong with the traffic.

Anyone?

 

[Floris]

It's not my site, but I am still admin on it, without mentioning their url though I've asked if I could mention the following:

Traffic has gone down, but activity from registered members has gone up. They've received about 7% more advertising income per quarter. They have 19% more impressions and user activity seems to be up compared to the 6 months before that.
They're quite pleased with the result, despite the initial dip because when things change, they always change and google simply has to re-index a few things - but xenforo has canonical urls via the 301 perm redirects, so it's learning quick.

 

[TheBigK]

It's not my site, but I am still admin on it, without mentioning their url though I've asked if I could mention the following:

Traffic has gone down, but activity from registered members has gone up. They've received about 7% more advertising income per quarter. They have 19% more impressions and user activity seems to be up compared to the 6 months before that.
They're quite pleased with the result, despite the initial dip because when things change, they always change and google simply has to re-index a few things - but xenforo has canonical urls via the 301 perm redirects, so it's learning quick.

Thank you, Floris!
How much time it's been since the migration?

 

[Carlos]

When I imported my vB instance from vB4 to xenForo - I had thought of putting vBSEO redirection but I couldn't find the solution to my "problem" or question. So, instead of waiting, I put it live, lo and behold, the growth was coming on pretty strong.

 

[Floris]

End of April, after 1.0.1 came out.

 

[marioman]

It's not my site, but I am still admin on it, without mentioning their url though I've asked if I could mention the following:

Traffic has gone down, but activity from registered members has gone up. They've received about 7% more advertising income per quarter. They have 19% more impressions and user activity seems to be up compared to the 6 months before that.
They're quite pleased with the result, despite the initial dip because when things change, they always change and google simply has to re-index a few things - but xenforo has canonical urls via the 301 perm redirects, so it's learning quick.

after transfer from vbulletin 4 to xenforo ( from 4 days abo )
i lost more than 5000 visiors ( down from 22K unique visitors every day to 17K )

all pages redirect by 301 and blogs, cms, groups redirect to index
i checked it by http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/
, using (site: http://oldPathToForum) in google and check links, check in google webmaster tools

it's horrible because i still lost them every day ( about 1500 visitors every day )
i wait google to understand this situation and see what will happen

 

[Dodgeboard]

I went from vb4+vBseo to XF and noticed a slight hit in search ranking and uniques, even with the redirects in place. It took a couple of months for things to return to normal, but now a year later, my rankings are higher than they have ever been. It's worth the temporary hit, in my opinion.

 

[marioman]

I went from vb4+vBseo to XF and noticed a slight hit in search ranking and uniques, even with the redirects in place. It took a couple of months for things to return to normal, but now a year later, my rankings are higher than they have ever been. It's worth the temporary hit, in my opinion.

can you please check your old statics in google analytic and tell us how many days google needed to return you results ?

 

[AzzidReign]

after transfer from vbulletin 4 to xenforo ( from 4 days abo )
i lost more than 5000 visiors ( down from 22K unique visitors every day to 17K )

all pages redirect by 301 and blogs, cms, groups redirect to index
i checked it by http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/
, using (site: http://oldPathToForum) in google and check links, check in google webmaster tools

it's horrible because i still lost them every day ( about 1500 visitors every day )
i wait google to understand this situation and see what will happen

When I converted from vB to IPB it took me from 50k down to 33k, some days even 28k. It didn't hit back over 50 until the other week...almost 2 years later. I don't believe in or trust IPS system at all hence the reason I'm switching. As much as I hate to lose initial hit from converting, I feel this is the software my site's members will enjoy much better. I'll be sure to post my stats as I go through this process over the next few months.

can you please check your old statics in google analytic and tell us how many days google needed to return you results ?

It's going to vary from site to site.

 

[TheBigK]

can you please check your old statics in google analytic and tell us how many days google needed to return you results ?

I'm interested in this as well.

It's going to vary from site to site.

Yep, but it should give us an idea.

 

[marioman]

about blog, groups and so on
i should use 301 redirect or 302 to index page ?

 

[DRE]

Is vBSEO worth the money? http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=269359

Anyway, my site's rankings went up after I converted over to XenForo.