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Redirects for vBSEO'd URLs

Could you take the lines out of the htaccess and try it again? When I tested the VBSEO'd links worked fine whether I had the htaccess lines there or not. Just trying to figure out if there's a reason they are needed that I wasn't seeing. I hit several specific threads and got bounced to the correct XF thread each time.

In the words of the great Robert De Niro "You talking to me?"

OK - let me check
 
I put the lines back in and now it's working again. Definitely needs the HTACCESS lines:

RewriteRule t([\d]+)-([\d]+)/ showthread.php?t=$1&page=$2 [NC,L]
RewriteRule [^/]+/([\d]+)-.+.html showthread.php?t=$1 [NC,L]
RewriteRule f([\d]+)/ forumdisplay.php?f=$1 [NC,L]
 
When I tested the VBSEO'd links worked fine whether I had the htaccess lines there or not.
Well, there must be something else that is performing the redirects even after you remove the generated rewrite rules. Stray vbseo rules? Any other XF addon? httpd.conf?

using '-' as a seperator.
If I remember correctly, "-" is the default word separator for vBSEO? If so, you won't have any problem with the redirects.
 
Just to check I understand this correctly:
  1. Download vBSEO XML file with all custom settings
  2. Upload XML file to your tool and generate rewrite rules
  3. Migrate vB forums to XenForo
  4. Place redirection files from Kier in old vB directory
  5. Place rewrite rules generated by your tool in .htaccess file in old vB directory
Then vBSEO URLs listed in Google will be redirected to the default vB URLs by the rewrite rules in htaccess, and then redirected by Kier's redirection files to their corresponding location in XenForo?

If this is correct I have a few questions:

- Will it function if I place XenForo in the old subdomain directory /forum/ and change the name of the old vB directory to /vbulletin/ to keep it separate from XF?
- How long do we have to keep the old vB directory, i.e. when will Google have replaced the old vBSEO URLs with the new XenForo URLs?
- What happens with vBSEO URLs that are posted in our own forum, or on other forums/sites? I guess to keep those redirecting to the correct location in XenForo you'd have to keep the old vB directory forever? Or perhaps on our own site they can be replaced permanently in some way?
- In big boards, isn't the redirection process that happens when visitors from Google are pointed to the new location in XenForo server intensive?

And do you know of a way to use custom URLs in XF?
 
Then vBSEO URLs listed in Google will be redirected to the default vB URLs by the rewrite rules in htaccess, and then redirected by Kier's redirection files to their corresponding location in XenForo?
That's right. Although the "vBSEO => vB" part of this process is handled by a rewrite, not a redirect.

- Will it function if I place XenForo in the old subdomain directory /forum/ and change the name of the old vB directory to /vbulletin/ to keep it separate from XF?
Changing the location of Kier's redirect scripts would render it useless. Those 3 scripts + .htaccess rules need to be placed exactly where your current vBulletin is installed. On the contrary, your XF can be installed anywhere, even on a different domain; given that you update the redirect scripts (it's a 1 line edit) to point to your XF files.

- How long do we have to keep the old vB directory, i.e. when will Google have replaced the old vBSEO URLs with the new XenForo URLs?
- What happens with vBSEO URLs that are posted in our own forum, or on other forums/sites? I guess to keep those redirecting to the correct location in XenForo you'd have to keep the old vB directory forever? Or perhaps on our own site they can be replaced permanently in some way?
That depends on how much traffic you are getting via Referrals (esp, deep linked pages). If majority of traffic is coming via Search Engines, you can remove the redirects once all the obsolete urls have been re-indexed.

- In big boards, isn't the redirection process that happens when visitors from Google are pointed to the new location in XenForo server intensive?
Not at all. After the XF framework is initialized, in those redirect scripts, it takes just 1 query to fetch the new ID; that's it.

And do you know of a way to use custom URLs in XF?
Do you mean CRRs (Custom Rewrite Rules)?
 
Does that mean that if currently my vB installation is in /forums, I cannot have my XenForo installation in the same folder?

Here's what I had planned. I start by closing my vB board, and importing all content into the XenForo installation, which will be sitting in /xf for the time of the upgrade. As soon as the upgrade is done, and all add-ons, tweaks, etc are in place, I want to rename the existing /forums to /forums_old, and my /xf folder to /forums.

Would that not work if I'd try using the approach outlined here?
 
No. You can install XF anywhere, even in the directory where your vBulletin used to exist.
There's no restriction.

Just the redirect scripts need to be placed exactly where your vB was.

Btw, why not install XF in the domain root?
 
No. You can install XF anywhere, even in the directory where your vBulletin used to exist.
There's no restriction.

Just the redirect scripts need to be placed exactly where your vB was.

Btw, why not install XF in the domain root?

Mostly cause I already have the existing setup as it is. I plan on using Jaxel's portal as my landing page (using vBAdvanced now). I also run a wiki in /wiki, and most of my home-grown tools etc. run in the /forums folder. Lots of everything there has already been picked up by the search engines, so I'm quite reluctant to make changes to it.
 
Yes, for example change the default:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/
to: http://xenforo.com/community/other-resources.21/redirects-for-vbseod-urls.5098/
Ah.. Customized URL formats. I haven't seen any add-on achieving that.
Although it's doable, the process is a bit tricky to get right.
 
i cant seem to get this to work. I uploaded everything add it to the htaccess pointed the config to the right directory.
Can you post the entire contents of your .htaccess file?

It says im forums are unsupported also, that cant be good news :-( lool
Your individual 'forum' urls in vbseo didn't include any IDs, so it's not possible to redirect them with a simple redirect. If you really want to, you have to manually set up redirects for individual forums and sub-forums; but it's not worth the effort as your main content is in Threads and as long as they are redirected, there's no need to worry.
 
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule [^/]+/([\d]+)-.+-([\d]+).html showthread.php?t=$1&page=$2 [NC,L]
RewriteRule [^/]+/([\d]+)-.+.html showthread.php?t=$1 [NC,L]

# Mod_security can interfere with uploading of content such as attachments. If you
# cannot attach files, remove the "#" from the lines below.
#<IfModule mod_security.c>
# SecFilterEngine Off
# SecFilterScanPOST Off
#</IfModule>

ErrorDocument 401 default
ErrorDocument 403 default
ErrorDocument 404 default
ErrorDocument 500 default

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

# If you are having problems with the rewrite rules, remove the "#" from the
# line that begins "RewriteBase" below. You will also have to change the path
# of the rewrite to reflect the path to your XenForo installation.
#RewriteBase /xenforo

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^(data|js|styles|install) - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
</IfModule>
 
Well, it looks like there's a problem redirecting from showthread.php?t=old-id to the new thread urls. Could you check your database and see if "xf_import_log" table is not empty? Given your board statistics, there should be around 500K records in that table.
 
Hey Shadab.

I just upped my vBSEO xml to your excellent tool (thank you, by the way) but unfortunately it seems I have fallen at the first hurdle...see attached pic.Screen shot 2011-03-14 at 22.01.47.webp

I didn't think that we had ever customized our structure but there is definitely something "non-standard" in there. Sorting out the re-writes for our board is one of the crucial parts of a move to xF.

Is it as bad as it looks?

Here's the xml...
 

Attachments

I didn't think that we had ever customized our structure but there is definitely something "non-standard" in there. Sorting out the re-writes for our board is one of the crucial parts of a move to xF.

Is it as bad as it looks?
No. Like I said, as long as thread urls are redirected, there's no reason to worry.

In fact, there are 2 presets (#001 and #003) for which 'forum' url redirects cannot be generated. And unfortunately, the #001 preset is set to default when you install vbseo. Or at least that was the case when I installed it in 2007(?).
 
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