principia
Well-known member
My forum exists since 3 years and has 175 member before migrating from smf. this was on 7th of may. Now there are 517 members, traffic has more doubled and google ranking for some keywords is much better than before.
CycleChat.net moving to XF on 20th Nov 2011
- Thread starter CTXMedia
- Start date
My forum exists since 3 years and has 175 member before migrating from smf. this was on 7th of may. Now there are 517 members, traffic has more doubled and google ranking for some keywords is much better than before.
CTXMedia
Well-known member
I don't really know yet - it's only been a couple of days and I turned spidering speed to it's lowest whilst I did the migration and got things settled in.
I'll bring the speed back up to normal today and see how it goes.
I've got redirects in place as per Kiers scripts/.htaccess - and I'll report back in the coming weeks and months on how things are progressing.
TBH my members are my primary concern and making sure they are settled in and comfortable and can do all the things they're used to being able to do is my priority right now. Google can be worked on later once I've got things knocked back into shape.
I've put my site meta details and analytics code in the main template thought so Google can happily keep tabs and re-index if it wants to; we'll see how things go over the coming months.
Cheers,
Shaun
CTXMedia
Well-known member
Thanks ... I'm already benefitting from an Admin perspective - the inline modding tools make it easy to zip around doing those little things that used to require selection/scrolling/clicking/refreshing.
Members seem to have taken to it quite well too, and it's noticably faster to use.
TheBigK
Well-known member
Do you have any update on the analytics?Thanks ... I'm already benefitting from an Admin perspective - the inline modding tools make it easy to zip around doing those little things that used to require selection/scrolling/clicking/refreshing.
Members seem to have taken to it quite well too, and it's noticably faster to use.
CTXMedia
Well-known member
No, not really - but I'm not going to be able to gauge anything useful from just a few days use (I only really got the site properly settled and up to full speed on Thursday).
Everyone's still getting used to the change so give it a few weeks, maybe a month, then we'll get some reasonable comparison data.
I'll post in more detail about the experience when I have a free evening to write it up properly, but the short version is: import went well, a few glitches (but nothing major), and my members seem to be taking to it well.
Cheers,
Shaun
TheBigK
Well-known member
Do you have an update on this?Just a note to say I hope to write about the move and post-move in more detail next week. I've had a lot going on in the past couple of months, but things are settling down now. Really short version - "XF is good mojo."
CTXMedia
Well-known member
Do you have an update on this?
Sorry, I've been really busy and haven't had a chance to sit down and write about it. As soon as I get a free evening I'll get something posted.
Cheers,
Shaun
TheBigK
Well-known member
Great! Looking forward to it.Sorry, I've been really busy and haven't had a chance to sit down and write about it. As soon as I get a free evening I'll get something posted.
Cheers,
Shaun
Biker
Well-known member
Just a note to say I hope to write about the move and post-move in more detail next week. I've had a lot going on in the past couple of months, but things are settling down now. Really short version - "XF is good mojo."
Damn Shaun. Looks like I'm following you again. We'll be converting in about 6-8 weeks. Running things on the test bed right now.
CTXMedia
Well-known member
Okay, sorry for taking so long and for the lack on any real nitty gritty detail, but here's the write-up.
I moved my largest forums – CycleChat – on Sunday 20th November 2011 after spending several years on vB3.8.4 and then a year on IPB 3.x series. I chose a Sunday as it’s our quietest day – everyone is out riding their bikes: http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/new-forum-software-switchover-starts-10pm-sat-19th-nov-2011.90177/
I’d expected it to take around 40 hours total to complete as I don’t have a particularly fast server and I had a lot of permissions to set once the actual data import was complete (and it had taken a similar time when I moved from vB to IPB a year earlier), so I booked the following Monday and Tuesday off work so I could ensure it was completed in one sitting. I spent a week or so beforehand removing old (hidden) forums/posts and consolidating user groups to shorten the post import time and simplify the job of setting permissions once the migration was complete; and of course, letting the membership know what was coming.
I closed CycleChat at around 10pm on Saturday and set about backing up the database, moving the IPB files to a secondary location (I still needed it running to access the gallery and blog data, and for double-checking after the migration) then installed XF and began the conversion. I carried out all the user group, forum, member imports etc. and then started the big job of the post table import – approx. 1.5 million posts. I knew it was going to take a long while so watched it for an hour and then headed off to bed to get some sleep.
I lost around six hours of the initial post import because I’d forgotten to take the power saving settings off on my laptop and as I’d drifted off to sleep, so had the laptop ...
!! But it was taking a lot longer than I’d expected so I posted on the XF forums to question what was taking it so long: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...-3-1-4-to-xf-1-1-rc1-going-very-slowly.23495/
Turns out XF wasn’t using the best choice of index so after Mike zapped it with some of his voodoo magic it went a lot faster and completed by early Monday morning (sorry, I was so busy zipping around in the background with smilies and other settings so I didn’t take a final screenshot of the completed import screen). My next stumbling block was in rebuilding the search cache. Every time I tried, it failed; and almost always at the same point. I’d imagined my data was corrupted and that I’d need to start over again, but Mike came to the rescue again with advice to disable the index keys whilst the rebuild was carried out, and then enable (rebuild) the keys afterwards. Worked a treat: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/restart-the-import-from-scratch.23544/
So, data import complete, a good few hours of fiddling with forum settings, smilies configured, user groups and promotions defined, etc. - and everything is ready to go, so I open up shop again running on XF. YES!!! (By this time my poor members had been waiting nearly 48 hours.)
Everything was running fine to start with but then it started stalling and I was seeing massive load spikes on the server. I could run it in isolation (board closed) and it worked fine, but as soon as everyone logged in it started to lock up, I was seeing duplicate posts, and it just wasn’t working as good as it should: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...ely-high-three-figures-after-migration.23572/
Anyway, after tweaking MySQL to favour InnoDB a little more and after all my regulars had logged in (and by doing so, ran all the initial queries against their user accounts) things settled down nicely. A little later I noticed that all the mini-me icons were missing from threads I’d participated in, so asked about that and Mike helped me to rebuild them: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...or-missing-after-import-from-ipb-3-1-4.23809/
The only remaining issue I stumbled across was that some of the smilies had retained their previous paths and weren’t displaying properly in posts, so Brogan helped me out with a replacement query: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/smiley-paths-need-updating-after-import.23812/
My membership quickly settled in to using XF and I had far fewer complaints and flounces this time around, so for me it was a great result. Post count is up (to near summer levels of posting in January) and me and the moderator team are getting far more done in the time we have available due to the inline modding tools, the logical way things are set out in XF, and the simplicity of it all which makes it a breeze to use. Faster, better, and with a happier and busier membership – perfic!!
The introduction of the Elastic Search add-on Xenforo Enhanced Search (XFES) has made searching much faster and more relative and is something I very much welcomed for CycleChat: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-enhanced-search-1-0-0-released.26150/
In the past couple of weeks I’ve tweaked MySQL some more as I’d inadvertently overloaded some of the per-thread settings and caused bottlenecks that were having a negative impact when the site was busy; it is now blazing along with a lovely low server load and much smaller memory footprint.
What have I done about blogs and gallery? I’ve used XFR User Albums for the gallery images and manually moved them over (yes, it was very labour intensive, but my community are worth it!): http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xfr-user-albums.26753/
I’m still working on blogs as I’d initially wanted to use [LN] Blog (http://xenforo.com/community/threads/ln-blog.26841/) but have since investigated the possibility of using Wordpress with the user bridge and layout add-on: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/wordpress-3-bridge.5398/ + http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xendynamic-wordpress-theme.19856/
So – how has traffic been since moving? Well, I’ve seen an increase in activity and posting from the regulars and I certainly haven’t lost lots of search engine traffic like I did when I moved from vB to IPB (which took around 6 months to recover from!!), so it’s going very well. Not an instantly massive upturn in numbers, but a steady climb which will hopefully continue throughout the year. Post count up, discussion messages up, uploading of attachments up (presumably because it’s so easy to do in XF). The only thing that has dropped is profile posts – but that’s because XF doesn’t show them in the home page sidebar and even with the excellent add-on from bambua you can’t reply directly (you have to click on the users’ avatar, then profile page, and then make a comment - not intuitive really – no disrespect bambua).
We’re still No.2 in Google for cycling forums so we haven’t lost any positioning, and to be honest I don’t think there have been any negatives from the move as far as Google is concerned – it’s still indexing away like the manic web hamster that it is and we still have the same half million+ listings (which seem to have been updated nice and quick [Kiers redirects doing the job.]).
Any regrets? None whatsoever. I enjoy using my forums more, get more done in the time I have to manage them, and my membership are more than happy with XF.
It's only been twelve weeks and people are still getting used to it, but for me it was very much a worthwhile move and I am a very happy forum owner as a result!
A few graphics:
I moved my largest forums – CycleChat – on Sunday 20th November 2011 after spending several years on vB3.8.4 and then a year on IPB 3.x series. I chose a Sunday as it’s our quietest day – everyone is out riding their bikes: http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/new-forum-software-switchover-starts-10pm-sat-19th-nov-2011.90177/
I’d expected it to take around 40 hours total to complete as I don’t have a particularly fast server and I had a lot of permissions to set once the actual data import was complete (and it had taken a similar time when I moved from vB to IPB a year earlier), so I booked the following Monday and Tuesday off work so I could ensure it was completed in one sitting. I spent a week or so beforehand removing old (hidden) forums/posts and consolidating user groups to shorten the post import time and simplify the job of setting permissions once the migration was complete; and of course, letting the membership know what was coming.
I closed CycleChat at around 10pm on Saturday and set about backing up the database, moving the IPB files to a secondary location (I still needed it running to access the gallery and blog data, and for double-checking after the migration) then installed XF and began the conversion. I carried out all the user group, forum, member imports etc. and then started the big job of the post table import – approx. 1.5 million posts. I knew it was going to take a long while so watched it for an hour and then headed off to bed to get some sleep.
I lost around six hours of the initial post import because I’d forgotten to take the power saving settings off on my laptop and as I’d drifted off to sleep, so had the laptop ...
!! But it was taking a lot longer than I’d expected so I posted on the XF forums to question what was taking it so long: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...-3-1-4-to-xf-1-1-rc1-going-very-slowly.23495/Turns out XF wasn’t using the best choice of index so after Mike zapped it with some of his voodoo magic it went a lot faster and completed by early Monday morning (sorry, I was so busy zipping around in the background with smilies and other settings so I didn’t take a final screenshot of the completed import screen). My next stumbling block was in rebuilding the search cache. Every time I tried, it failed; and almost always at the same point. I’d imagined my data was corrupted and that I’d need to start over again, but Mike came to the rescue again with advice to disable the index keys whilst the rebuild was carried out, and then enable (rebuild) the keys afterwards. Worked a treat: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/restart-the-import-from-scratch.23544/
So, data import complete, a good few hours of fiddling with forum settings, smilies configured, user groups and promotions defined, etc. - and everything is ready to go, so I open up shop again running on XF. YES!!! (By this time my poor members had been waiting nearly 48 hours.)
Everything was running fine to start with but then it started stalling and I was seeing massive load spikes on the server. I could run it in isolation (board closed) and it worked fine, but as soon as everyone logged in it started to lock up, I was seeing duplicate posts, and it just wasn’t working as good as it should: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...ely-high-three-figures-after-migration.23572/
Anyway, after tweaking MySQL to favour InnoDB a little more and after all my regulars had logged in (and by doing so, ran all the initial queries against their user accounts) things settled down nicely. A little later I noticed that all the mini-me icons were missing from threads I’d participated in, so asked about that and Mike helped me to rebuild them: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...or-missing-after-import-from-ipb-3-1-4.23809/
The only remaining issue I stumbled across was that some of the smilies had retained their previous paths and weren’t displaying properly in posts, so Brogan helped me out with a replacement query: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/smiley-paths-need-updating-after-import.23812/
My membership quickly settled in to using XF and I had far fewer complaints and flounces this time around, so for me it was a great result. Post count is up (to near summer levels of posting in January) and me and the moderator team are getting far more done in the time we have available due to the inline modding tools, the logical way things are set out in XF, and the simplicity of it all which makes it a breeze to use. Faster, better, and with a happier and busier membership – perfic!!
The introduction of the Elastic Search add-on Xenforo Enhanced Search (XFES) has made searching much faster and more relative and is something I very much welcomed for CycleChat: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-enhanced-search-1-0-0-released.26150/
In the past couple of weeks I’ve tweaked MySQL some more as I’d inadvertently overloaded some of the per-thread settings and caused bottlenecks that were having a negative impact when the site was busy; it is now blazing along with a lovely low server load and much smaller memory footprint.
What have I done about blogs and gallery? I’ve used XFR User Albums for the gallery images and manually moved them over (yes, it was very labour intensive, but my community are worth it!): http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xfr-user-albums.26753/
I’m still working on blogs as I’d initially wanted to use [LN] Blog (http://xenforo.com/community/threads/ln-blog.26841/) but have since investigated the possibility of using Wordpress with the user bridge and layout add-on: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/wordpress-3-bridge.5398/ + http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xendynamic-wordpress-theme.19856/
So – how has traffic been since moving? Well, I’ve seen an increase in activity and posting from the regulars and I certainly haven’t lost lots of search engine traffic like I did when I moved from vB to IPB (which took around 6 months to recover from!!), so it’s going very well. Not an instantly massive upturn in numbers, but a steady climb which will hopefully continue throughout the year. Post count up, discussion messages up, uploading of attachments up (presumably because it’s so easy to do in XF). The only thing that has dropped is profile posts – but that’s because XF doesn’t show them in the home page sidebar and even with the excellent add-on from bambua you can’t reply directly (you have to click on the users’ avatar, then profile page, and then make a comment - not intuitive really – no disrespect bambua).
We’re still No.2 in Google for cycling forums so we haven’t lost any positioning, and to be honest I don’t think there have been any negatives from the move as far as Google is concerned – it’s still indexing away like the manic web hamster that it is and we still have the same half million+ listings (which seem to have been updated nice and quick [Kiers redirects doing the job.]).
Any regrets? None whatsoever. I enjoy using my forums more, get more done in the time I have to manage them, and my membership are more than happy with XF.
It's only been twelve weeks and people are still getting used to it, but for me it was very much a worthwhile move and I am a very happy forum owner as a result!
A few graphics:
