Does import from vbulletin take care of internal link structure?

[Marcus]

My vbulletin forum posts have thousands of internal links to both forums and threads/posts. Are these internal links converted to xenforo links?

 

[Paul B]

Post content is not changed during an import.

You will need to update/edit/tidy up any BB Codes or URLs which are no longer correct.
You can run SQL queries or use this tool: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/post-content-find-replace.6548/

Import redirection scripts however will cater for any original URLs: http://xenforo.com/help/import-redirection/

 

[Marcus]

Post content is not changed during an import.

This is unfortunately very bad news Where is the right place for starting a thread about accomplishing this - I wrote a plugin for vbulletin doing this and like to share it so the project "Internal links" has something to start.

 

[Paul B]

You need to be a customer to post in the add-ons forums.

 

[Crispy]

This is unfortunately very bad news Where is the right place for starting a thread about accomplishing this - I wrote a plugin for vbulletin doing this and like to share it so the project "Internal links" has something to start.

Remember, a redirection script will have the same effect. For example, check out this post:

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...e-1967-trains-next-week.276559/#post-10267877

it includes a link to an old vbulletin thread. Click it, and you go to the imported xenforo thread. seamless

 

[Marcus]

Remember, a redirection script will have the same effect.

There are some downsides from a redirection script to a real change of links:
1. takes more server power
2. looks strange to a user having urls that are not used anymore (looks outdated as they are outdated)
3. possibly bad for SEO as the URLs are redirected. They don't link directly to the topic.
4. Import data has to be present for all-the-time
5. You can't go from xenforo at all after that. Converting from vb>xenforo>other software won't hold the redirection links at all

 

[bambua]

As long as a redirect is done properly, for example a 301 redirect from the old path to the new one, the search engines will update their links and it really has no SEO effect at all.

The post content find and replace is a good way to go as well, I used that tool for some custom bbcodes we had when we moved and it went well. Though I recommend trying it in a test environment first if you screw up a regular expression you could change more than you think you are.

 

[Marcus]

I can not understand till today why the import of vbulletin just not takes the same IDs. showthread.php?t=123 should be threads/....123 The same goes for the posts, forumids and the userids. Everything else is not so important. It should be very easy to do this and then all the redirection issues are not needed.

 

[Paul B]

Importing is done in sequential order, so any deleted users, threads and posts will be skipped and the numbering will continue from the next available one.

How have you been testing the import?

 

[Marcus]

I did not test the importer as I did not buy xenforo yet. I just assumed the worst - and I got right. I understand how the importers - all currently available ones from all manufacturers - work. It would be just much more useful if there would be an importer from xenforo for other forum software with the option, that when you import to a complete empty xenforo community, that in this case all deleted import-IDs are created and then deleted for xenforo. Example: First vbulletin showthread IDs are 3, 6.

1. The importer checks for ID 1: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 1
2. The importer checks for ID 2: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 2
3. The importer checks for ID 3: Import this ID. This will be ID 3
4. The importer checks for ID 4: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 4
5. The importer checks for ID 5: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 5
6. The importer checks for ID 6: Import this ID. This will be ID 6

I don't understand where the big downside of this is. In this case another table for oldids/newids is not needed. Also redirects are very easy as the IDs will be the same. Yes, it is different from what the vbulletin importer does. But the xenforo vbulletin importer should be different. And this would be a huge improvement.

 

[Slavik]

I did not test the importer as I did not buy xenforo yet. I just assumed the worst - and I got right. I understand how the importers - all currently available ones from all manufacturers - work. It would be just much more useful if there would be an importer from xenforo for other forum software with the option, that when you import to a complete empty xenforo community, that in this case all deleted import-IDs are created and then deleted for xenforo. Example: First vbulletin showthread IDs are 3, 6.

1. The importer checks for ID 1: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 1
2. The importer checks for ID 2: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 2
3. The importer checks for ID 3: Import this ID. This will be ID 3
4. The importer checks for ID 4: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 4
5. The importer checks for ID 5: Not available. Create ID. Delete ID 5
6. The importer checks for ID 6: Import this ID. This will be ID 6

I don't understand where the big downside of this is. In this case another table for oldids/newids is not needed. Also redirects are very easy as the IDs will be the same. Yes, it is different from what the vbulletin importer does. But the xenforo vbulletin importer should be different. And this would be a huge improvement.

It would not take much to modify the importer to do that in theory.

Something like

Importer checks for ID1: Not Available: Insert blank post with user Holdingplace: move to next
Importer checks for ID2: Not Available: Insert blank post with user Holdingplace: move to next
Importer checks for ID3: Available: Insert post data: move to next
etc
When all done and dusted, use the spam removal tool to delete all of user "holdingplaces" posts.

 

[DeltaHF]

Wait a minute - the XenForo thread ID's don't match up with vBulletin's after an import? How does the redirection work, then?

 

[Slavik]

Wait a minute - the XenForo thread ID's don't match up with vBulletin's after an import? How does the redirection work, then?

The xf_import_log table

The redirection scripts take the url your requesting, reference it old id > new id from the import log table then build and output the relevent new url.

 

[Marcus]

Wait a minute - the XenForo thread ID's don't match up with vBulletin's after an import? How does the redirection work, then?

It would be only fair that xenforo states that it imports the data, but the whole ID structure is completely different.