Migrating site using vBSEO to Xenforo URLs?

[cmeinck]

From what I've been reading, vBSEO will not support XenForo -- at least initially. If this is true, how would a site migrate to XenForo without losing SERPs of current URL's. Would there be redirects? Not sure if/how this would work?

I do know that I would not want to have to wait for Google to completely reindex my forums.

 

[James]

I can. I think thread URL's should include the forum ID they're in. I have it that way, example:

http://forum.dutchbodybuilding.com/f8/piramide-reps-254397/

that would be better than:

http://forum.dutchbodybuilding.com/threads/piramide-reps-254397/

because it gives the user more information about its location + it's more logical, since threads are in a virtual directory 'forum x' not 'threads'.

Using just forum ID's instead of forum names (+ID) has the advantage of being able to rename forums at any time, without changing their URL (and lose PageRank temporary), and it's shorter.

Ah, having parent forum ids instead of the /threads/ could have its uses, but then again an ID doesn't make the URL any better for a person to read and from what I've read up on SEO, search engines suggest optimising URLs for humans, not spiders.
Having the /threads/, /posts/ and /page/ virtual dir's is so we can distinguish between what we are referring to. As Kier/Mike mentioned, it is possible to make more virtual dir's so it ensures consistency.

 

[dutchbb]

I just hope we can easily change it to our personal needs because there's no way everyone is going to agree on one way of doing it anyway.

 

[James]

I just hope we can easily change it to our personal needs because there's no way everyone is going to agree on one way of doing it anyway.

Of course not, that's the beauty of diverse communities. I believe the 3 structures available out-of-the-box are:
www.xenforo.com/community/threads/title.id
www.xenforo.com/community/threads/id
www.xenforo.com/community/index.php?/threads/id

Of course, you could make a suggestion to have:
www.xenforo.com/community/forum-title/id or www.xenforo.com/community/forum-title/threads/id (if you wanted an even more logical order).

 

[Carlos]

I'm not concerned about changing 'URL's' on thread move. Thus, I agree with what dutchbb has said just now:

A thread is usually moved shortly after it is created, so at that point it isn't indexed yet. Moving it and thereby changing the URL will thus not have an effect on it's PageRank and indexing. I think it's more important to have a logical URL regarding threads. But for the forums I do follow your argument, as I already explained.

 

[cmeinck]

Drudging up an old thread to see how everyone is doing with the SERP's post migration. Are you losing any rankings that you owned with vBSEO?

 

[Mike Fara]

Drudging up an old thread to see how everyone is doing with the SERP's post migration. Are you losing any rankings that you owned with vBSEO?

I hate to say it but it looks like they were never heard from again?

 

[Mike Fara]

Well we are going forward... we are in a dual shock situation. We are combining two forums into one and then migrating to XenForo. Trying the demo was enough for a few of us to say this is superior, despite all of our custom plugins, all of that. This is a superior software for our needs. We are waiting for rewrite rule guidance from VBSEO to XenF... we have a lot of backlinks we don't want to lose.

 

[Jeremy]

Well we are going forward... we are in a dual shock situation. We are combining two forums into one and then migrating to XenForo. Trying the demo was enough for a few of us to say this is superior, despite all of our custom plugins, all of that. This is a superior software for our needs. We are waiting for rewrite rule guidance from VBSEO to XenF... we have a lot of backlinks we don't want to lose.

If the forums are coming from software XenForo can import, you may be better just moving it over straight to XenForo.

 

[Mike Fara]

If the forums are coming from software XenForo can import, you may be better just moving it over straight to XenForo.

Having read the documentation this appears to be 100% correct. You are right, there is no reason. Unfortunately the vB4 script is in beta. Hoping nothing breaks down here. Close to that stage but not yet.

 

[Jeremy]

You should always do a test import. But as long as you save the import logs, you should be able to set up the vB4 redirect scripts correctly.

 

[Mike Fara]

You should always do a test import. But as long as you save the import logs, you should be able to set up the vB4 redirect scripts correctly.

So far so good. We had a hickup. Here's the thing. During the first import we saved the unique ID for the threads and so forth under the options in RC2. Saved that to the table. Then, when starting the 2nd import, we also checked off the same option... to preserve the thread IDs and so forth. It looks like there was a collision and some stuff got deleted, so we started the import over again. On the second import, is it safe to say, not to try to preserve the IDs?

 

[Jeremy]

You can't preserve IDs if doing multiple imports (after the first one that is). Be sure you don't overwrite the import logs from the first one with the second one either.

 

[Mike Fara]

You can't preserve IDs if doing multiple imports (after the first one that is). Be sure you don't overwrite the import logs from the first one with the second one either.

Learned this the hard way! Yes, making sure the two tables are different. Thank you!

 

[Jeremy]

Also, if you'd like support, you should post in the appropriate forums.

 

[Mike Fara]

Also, if you'd like support, you should post in the appropriate forums.

Thanks. I've been talking to the staff here in private conversation and they've been extremely helpful.