Dying to SWITCH Over! But I have a lot of questions :)

surfsup

Well-known member
Ive been reading a lot of posts, really dig the 8th legion forum, the dude did a great job.

Anyways, here are my questions and what I need to save and create. I am currently running this:

VB4 4.1.11 , with almost 13k members.

PhotoPost Gallery+Classifieds - I am running both versions of the main version and only tie in with the users, I need this switched over so xenforo users can use both of these WITHOUT LOSING the STATS of classifieds as its very important to show how much money was sold in classifieds etc over the years.

Thanks/Likes plugin - I need to convert this somehow because all our users love this plugin and they love posting their stats weekly on this haha...

1) I would like to use Wordpress as the homepage, I have a really great premium theme that has everything and the layout I want for the homepage.

2) I would like to use our current logo and color scheme of the forum but more of a layout such as 8th legion with some custom work.

Where do I get started? Who can do all of this for me as I have no professional coders that can help me right now as they know nothing about Xenforo, I have spent way too much time dealing with Vbulletin drama over the years and its so out of date its not even funny. The forum is super slow even though were using maxCDN & dedicated server plus optimized!!! Driving me crazy as well as members!

Please let me know as I want to switch over so bad but dont have any help whatsoever and not enough knowledge to make the transition smoothly, I cant afford to have our forum go down for any slip ups as I have a lot of paid advertisers.

Thank you for your time!
 
I have a similar sized site and recently made the switch. Here are my thoughts:

First, I assume everything has to have been in your database. So, while the exact same Classified mod may not (or it may, I don't know) be available, the data still exists, so one way or another, it can be done to save this data and get it over to your new installation of xf. This might cost you to get a similar mod coded if it does not already exist, but depending on your need/desire or ability to spend on this project, I think it can be done.

I used SchmitzIT''s (http://xenforo.com/community/threads/schmitzit-xenforo-services.26449/#post-335978) services for my migration. I had some problems with the available importers, but Peter knocked out the problem in a few hours. He was very competent/knowledgeable about the database issues and coded updates to the importer on the fly to make it work. I can't say enough about how good I think his service and capabilities are. That said, you can check around and see if there is someone else who you feel is a better choice for you.

I used BluePearl (http://www.bluepearl-skins.com/forums/topic/7516-custom-vbulletin-ipb-xenforo-skins-and-services/), who had made my vb template to basically make a (better) XF version of my site. He also did a great job. You can find him on this site as Sean James, if you want to try to contact him through a Conversation. My bet is he can set you up with a great skin.

If you want to ask me any questions, feel free (though, I am not sure how much more info I can give; once I knew I was out of my depth, I looked to the smartest/best guys I know to get what I wanted). I can say that my members response has been positive and I am so happy to be off of vb.

Good luck!
 
@jadmperry what is your forum url? can u pm me so i can take a look?

Also, since i use VBSEO, what can I use to replace it? Will making the switch affect all the $$$ I pushed into organic SEO etc?
 
@jadmperry what is your forum url? can u pm me so i can take a look?

Also, since i use VBSEO, what can I use to replace it? Will making the switch affect all the $$$ I pushed into organic SEO etc?
There is a script to redirect VBSEO link here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/

EDIT: That's a script to redirect VBSEO links to normal vbulletin links. Then you can search on the forum to find the way to redirect the normal vbulletin links to xenforo links.
 
@jadmperry what is your forum url? can u pm me so i can take a look?

Also, since i use VBSEO, what can I use to replace it? Will making the switch affect all the $$$ I pushed into organic SEO etc?

Peter helped me set up my HTACCES to redirect links....My experience as a baseline was that for a long time, I had the first result for google for my main keywords...over the last 18 months or so on vb, I sank a few positions. I am such a small niche site, that while this bothered me, I was not too worried. Then, about a month ago, I got hit by a vBSEO exploit (I had heard of it before, and ran their script, which told me I was all good...then I got hit anyway with some kind of SQL injection somethingorother and had all these hate mails from google and yandex about how I had crazy malware). Result was that google stripped me altogether for a few weeks. I migrated over to XF on 3/12 (which also removed all the suspect scripts from my site) and when I checked yesterday, I was back up to the second result in google for my main keywords.

I was prepared to take somewhat of a hit from migrating, but Peter helped me to redirect all the vBSEO urls and I really have only seen improvement in the short time I have been back with what I feel like is a "truer" version of my site on XF.
 
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