Questions about migrating from vB4

[Dimitrios]

Hello everyone.

I’m running a vB4 forum and it just looks terrible on mobile devices. This, to my feeling, is a major drawback. I surely don’t want to upgrade to vB5. I've seen people suffering with it.

So, I'm thinking about migrating either to xenforo or to IPS.

I do have a couple of questions, though.

1 ⁃ My domainname consists of greek letters. Would xenforo be able to handle that correctly?
2 ⁃ Is it 100% suitable for mobile devices?
3 ⁃ Right now I have a front page where I mostly host articles. Can I have that here, too?
4 ⁃ Can I have tabs? (right now I have tabs like: frontpage / forum etc)
5 ⁃ Is it easy and straightforward to migrate from vB4.2.5?
6 ⁃ Am i going to have support during the process?
7 ⁃ How much data is going to be preserved after migrating? (I'm reffering to stuff like post counters, avatars, ranks, titles, polls, emoticons etc.)
8 ⁃ Can I have custom BB codes, like for spoilers, using the same tags I use now?
9 ⁃ What happens to URLs? I mean, there’s a lot of incoming backlinking. That’s also appreciated by search engines. What happens to all that?

I hope I am not tiring you.
I'd really appreciate your answers.

Thanks

 

[Paul B]

All of that shouldn't be an issue.

There is a dedicated importer which will import all standard content and redirection scripts available for existing URLs.

We don't provide official ticket support for imports, but there is a dedicated forum where you can obtain community based assistance (as well as XF staff helping).

We also have a reasonable refund policy so you can purchase XF, test out the import and if you find it's not going to work for you, we can refund.

 

[Dimitrios]

Ok. I might try it.

What happens to articles, btw?

Right now each article is connected to a member, exactly like posts.

thanks

 

[Claudio]

Ok. I might try it.

What happens to articles, btw?

Right now each article is connected to a member, exactly like posts.

thanks

They are imported as forum posts

 

[Mr Lucky]

They are imported as forum posts

What I did was get the resource manager and then use an addon that converted threads to resources. That way they are bit more article like.

 

[Wildcat Media]

8 ⁃ Can I have custom BB codes, like for spoilers, using the same tags I use now?

I've had this issue on a few forums I converted several years ago. You may need help from fellow members here if you need to do a search/replace operation and use some regular expressions to find them all, but it certainly is possible. I came from vB 3.7 and am pleased that just about everything we had in the old forum was transferred over properly. Best bet is to set up a forum for testing, using your existing vB4 data, and do a few test runs of the conversion.

 

[parafly9]

I'm interested in a possible forum switch from Vb to Xenforo. Biggest reason really is mobile-ready templates. My traffic has tanked since Google started mobile first indexing.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I'm interested in a possible forum switch from Vb to Xenforo. Biggest reason really is mobile-ready templates. My traffic has tanked since Google started mobile first indexing.

I know there is no actual question here, but the answer is "good idea!"

 

[parafly9]

I know there is no actual question here, but the answer is "good idea!"

Jesus I'm ADHD these days. There actually was supposed to be a question here, which was does anyone offer migration services?

Apologize for the scatterbrained thoughts - I just started seriously considering this a few days ago so I'm thinking of feasibility.

site is forums.alpinezone.com

I have a few concerns about the upgrade:

1. I have a WP front end which I use to publish news and blog articles - does anything like this exist? I did see a Xenforo / WP bridge in a quick google search.
2. I'm using Tapatalk which works well enough, I assume it's easy to switch to the Xenforo plugin for tapatalk?
3. My styling is kind of dated now but I do want to keep a consistent look. What kind of styling options exist as far as backgrounds etc. Right now I keep my "menu bar" identical between the forum side and the Wordpress side , which is kinda tedious because i have to basically manage the menu in two locations (wordpress theme and Vbulletin).

For those who have switched, did you see organic search traffic increase?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yes there are a couple of bridge Addons, I think at least one of them will keep a consistent style between the two. I also think tapatalk has an addon, but I dropped tapatalk as soon as I moved from vb to xf, couldn't wait to get rid of it.

Yes traffic and ad revenue is up.

 

[parafly9]

Thanks, do you still have a standalone app? I have a published ios and android app and tbh it's our main source of interaction at this point.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Thanks, do you still have a standalone app?

I'm not sure what you mean by standalone app? So presumably I don't

 

[parafly9]

I'm not sure what you mean by standalone app? So presumably I don't

I mean a published app in the app store. Where users can actually open the forum app on their phone (instead of browsing to a mobile site).

e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tapatalk.forumsalpinezonecom

 

[Mr Lucky]

I mean a published app in the app store. Where users can actually open the forum app on their phone (instead of browsing to a mobile site).

e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tapatalk.forumsalpinezonecom

Er no that sounds complicated. They just use xenforo as it works nicely on mobile.

 

[Mr Lucky]

5 ⁃ Is it easy and straightforward to migrate from vB4.2.5?

All I can say is that the migration to xenforo for me was less stressful than a regular vbulletin upgrade!

 

[Dimitrios]

Getting back to this after some time.

Are there step by step instructions about how to migrate from vBulletin 4 to Xenforo?

 

[Max Taxable]

Are there step by step instructions about how to migrate from vBulletin 4 to Xenforo?

For myself, I decided not to sweat that and instead hired @MySiteGuy to take care of it, turnkey. And it's the best decision I ever made having migrated many phpBB sites to vB over the years and knowing what a PITA migration can sometimes be. His price is righteous, his service is great, he is trustworthy and will take good care of you. Might I suggest contacting him and getting lots of questions answered, at the very least. He's done this lots.

 

[Slavik]

Getting back to this after some time.

Are there step by step instructions about how to migrate from vBulletin 4 to Xenforo?

The import system | Manual | XenForo

End-user documentation for XenForo

xenforo.com

Very easy, install the importer addon, plug in your vbulletin details from your includes/config.php file and it will walk you through the rest.

 

[Dimitrios]

Thanks, Slavik.

I just bought a licence.

These import notes are not exactly step by step instructions.

Here's my plan. First I will install the latest version of Xenforo. Then install the import plugin (I'll look for instructions) like you suggest. In the meanwhile I am going to look for more instructions.

 

[Paul B]

There are guidelines here which can be used in conjunction with the manual: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/importing-guidelines.25325/