XF 1.4 Do I really need to redirect vb+VBSEO URLS? Or should I start fresh in Xenforo

[tribedude]

We are going to migrate our large vb with VBSEO shortly to Xenforo, and I have been dipping my toe into the information regarding redirects to make sure all the legacy URLS go to new installation.

What about not doing this at all and just importing the vb database and using the default Xenforo URL setup? How bad will Google searched be affected? Will Google pick up the new locations sooner? Or later? Will it take weeks to get 4.5 million posts re-indexed? Or years? Have any of you made the jump to Xenforo and just kicked the entire VBSEO naming thing to the curb and started fresh? What was that experience like for you with respect to indexing?

The reason I ask is that our vb 3.8x is already being excluded from Google mobile search because it is not mobile friendly (their new algorithm)... So I am thinking maybe starting fresh might be a good plan...

 

[Paul B]

The new URLs will be indexed as normal.

Any existing indexed URLs will 404, as will any links posted elsewhere, or even within your own forum.

The decision is yours.

 

[tribedude]

So does that mean for example if someone embeded a youtube vid in a post it will also 404? Or are we just talking about internal links within vb itself going to itself?

 

[Paul B]

Just VB urls, e.g. for threads, posts, etc.

 

[imthebest]

It's A MUST to redirect everything unless you don't care about traffic, earnings, and so.

If you don't redirect then your new XF URLs are going to be indexed by Google in the future (it could be days, weeks or months) but you'll lose your rankings. In other words:

If you want to kill your site: don't redirect.
If you want to keep your site alive: redirect everything.

The decision is yours.