From vB 4.2.1 with vBSEO to XenForo

[Recep Baltaş]

Hi guys,

we are currently a web site with daily 20K visits (10K to forum) and runnig vB 4.2.1 with vBSEO.

1. How many hours will it take us to switch to XenForo?
2. What is the amouunt of traffic that we will lose?
3. Will the vBSEO likes converted to XenForo likes, if exists?
4. Does XenForo has Turkish translation and if not, can I translate it?
5. Does Xenforo have UTF-8 support. Let's try this right away: ğ,ü,ş,ı,ö,ç. Update: It works.
6. Will users have to reset their passwords?
7. What will happen to the vBulletin blog posts of our forum?
8. What will happen to the tags in our forum?
9. Do you guys listen to the customer and add features we want? e.g. With my suggestion, VB5 will have user tagging just like facebook and hastags just like twitter. Also YouTube links will be converted to videos right away.
10. I have diabled PMs for users with less than 500 messages. Can I do the same with XenForo?
11. I have Spam-O-matic which prevents spammers form registering. Is there any solution for this in XenForo?

Thank you for your replies.

 

[tommydamic68]

Its a permission to create new conversations.

Yes - but there is no option I have seen (which I would like) to require a specific amounts of posts or threads to allow a conversation (PC).

 

[Digital Doctor]

How many hours will it take us to switch to XenForo

If the least amount of downtime is your goal ... the fastest importer is
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/vbulletin-big-board-importer-vbulletin-3-vbulletin-4.1981/
I don't think you need this ... it is usually reserved for forums with millions of posts.
This is how fast the big board importer is.

1) 18 million posts in 2 hours. I am guessing the web-based importer would take 3 days.

30.000 threads and 150.000 posts ... i'll see if I can find how long it took for similar sizes ...

FWIW, if you do try an import ... can you time it ? (to help the next person with the same question).

 

[Digital Doctor]

FYI: This might help.
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/import-tools-by-waindigo.1255/

This add-on adds a number of new options when performing an import from another forum software.

By allowing you to undo steps, skip steps and recover previous imports, and by skipping over any IDs that have previously been imported when you run a step more than once, this add-on makes debugging an importer or performing a staged import easier than ever.

This add-on is an advanced tool. Always backup before performing an import. It is also recommended to run a full test import first before completing an import for real.

 

[Jeremy]

Yes - but there is no option I have seen (which I would like) to require a specific amounts of posts or threads to allow a conversation (PC).

User group promotions.

 

[tommydamic68]

User group promotions.

Yes- that would work. Thanks.

 

[Digital Jedi]

1. Do you guys listen to the customer and add features we want? e.g. With my suggestion, VB5 will have user tagging just like facebook and hastags just like twitter. Also YouTube links will be converted to videos right away.

I know that wasn't really part of your question, but just to note, XenForo does this by default: http://xenforo.com/help/bb-code-media-sites/

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[TPerry]

Yes - but there is no option I have seen (which I would like) to require a specific amounts of posts or threads to allow a conversation (PC).

User group promotion to the rescue.

 

[0ptima]

1. Does Xenforo have UTF-8 support. Let's try this right away: ğ,ü,ş,ı,ö,ç. Update: It works.

Here is a converter
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/vbseo-likes-importer.2021/

 

[Moshe1010]

To import 500K posts, it took me about 2 hours with the home importer (VPS without SSD, just 2 cores and 4GB RAM). You don't really need anybody to do it for you. It's very simple: just press 10 buttons, and your forum is ready to go (yes, that simple). Don't believe me? try an import test on a testing area (that you should create before importing).

Basically, if you want to minimize downtime, just install all the add-ons upfront (that you need). Check that everything works, and make a backup (SQL+files). Then, import your database and see how it goes. When you're ready to go live, just upload your backup and start the import again. In terms of SEO, I got better results with XF then with vB (I didn't have vBSEO though). Basically my board increased in the amount of posts it makes by 25-30% since I moved to XF and this is in favor for more people are getting to my website (due to better mobile integration + SEO), and because the notification system is really good and engaging.

P.S 65% of my visits are from search engines, so I'm close to your situation and was very afraid to lose it. The only parameter that went down is page views, which is irrelevant since vB has many unusual pages that got indexed for some reason (also all the duplicate content such as /archive, which is plain stupid).

I basically got confidence that nothing would happen because I saw DP's statistics and took the risk:
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/one-month-after-switching-from-vbulletin-to-xenforo.2637721/

 

[Recep Baltaş]

With XF 1.3 coming, VBSEO all dead and DBseo costing 199$, I have made up my mind about sswitching to XF.

I have found all the alternatives for blogs, tags etc. The only thing is URL redirection. I have vb 4.2.2 + vbseo 3.6. Do I need URL redirection ? If yes, what are the steps to follow ?

My forum is on this URL ATM: technopat.net/forum
My new forum will be at technopat.net/community ?

 

[Jeremy]

URL Redirection is always a good idea. The community is more than helpful in providing these within the support forums.

 

[Recep Baltaş]

I don't have a license at the moment. I am waiting for 1.3 to come out. I could not ask my question on support forum. If you can reply here, I would like to provide info on my current config.

 

[Jeremy]

We cannot provide detailed support to unlicensed members.