Revive a dead/dormant community, or start a new

[rusty105]

So... Here is the story. I have an old forum that has essentially been offline for several years. I have the opportunity to reload a phpBB database and convert over to xenForo. It has a couple hundred members and a few thousand threads/posts. Once converted over I would try to recruit several social media creators in the same niche and encourage them to join and promote the forum/community.

OR I can, as they say, start with a blank slate. I would still recruit the social media creators to do their thing and promote.

One of my reasons for wanting to revive the old database is ... the content. I am thinking it is good food for the search bots to digest and index. I am thinking it would help jump start the forum.

Rusty

 

[cdub]

I think reviving for the reasons you stated... Existing content. How old is the content?

 

[rusty105]

I think reviving for the reasons you stated... Existing content. How old is the content?

Forum has been offline for about 8 years or so. So it is pretty old

Rusty

 

[CedricV]

You will likely not see anyone return. Maybe a few if you’re lucky. But it does give you some content to start with.

 

[ES Dev Team]

Forum has been offline for about 8 years or so. So it is pretty old

Rusty

You could technically import that into Xenforo

 

[rusty105]

You could technically import that into Xenforo

That is the plan, however I think the phpBB version is too low for a direct import. I have to have a stepping stone into a newer phpBB, update the database, then import into xenForo.

You will likely not see anyone return. Maybe a few if you’re lucky. But it does give you some content to start with.

I am more interested in the content, but welcome any that return !!

Rusty

 

[ES Dev Team]

I imported a pretty old version. I think it was circa 2017.

The only tricky part is if you need to retain URL redirection, which i'm betting you don't need to do.

 

[CedricV]

I imported a pretty old version. I think it was circa 2017.

The only tricky part is if you need to retain URL redirection, which i'm betting you don't need to do.

Yeah, you don’t since nothing is indexed or relevant to anyone seeing this has been offline for almost a decade.