Traffic Down Since VB to XF Migration

[Alfuzzy]

Oh so the forum is now residing in the root directory for your domain?

Yes sir...as far as I can tell. No "forums" subdirectory in public_html directory.

When site was previously running on VB...everything was in a "forums" subdirectory. With the 50% decrease in site traffic immediately after the VB to XF migration...I'm wondering if the file structure change from the old site on VB to the new site on XF could be responsible.

Thanks again

 

[djbaxter]

Are you using the Xenforo redirection script for vB?

This works very well in most cases.

XenForo Redirects for vBulletin

XF301VB is a XenForo 2 add-on, which extends the XenForo router with the ability to accept URLs pointing to vBulletin content and seamlessly, permanently redirect them to their equivalent content in XenForo after the content has been imported...

xenforo.com

 

[djbaxter]

Beyond that, it is not unusual to see a bit of a drop following initial migration but usually you'll see that returned in spades over the first few months, if not earlier. Your robots.txt file errors may have been confusing googlebot too.

Make sure you use the XF friendly URLs option - that helps. And take a look to see if the redirections are appearing in your .htaccess file ion the root directory. You can post that here too if you like.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Are you using the Xenforo redirection script for vB?

Yes that's installed.

 

[djbaxter]

Was the migration from 4.x or 5.x?

Were you using vBseo or DBSEO? You may have already answered that. If so, you may want to add some extra redirections in .htaccess.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Beyond that, it is not unusual to see a bit of a drop following initial migration but usually you'll see that returned in spades over the first few months, if not earlier. Your robots.txt file errors may have been confusing googlebot too.

Make sure you use the XF friendly URLs option - that helps. And take a look to see if the redirections are appearing in your .htaccess file ion the root directory. You can post that here too if you like.

It's been about 8-9 months now since the VB to XF migration...and traffic still hasn't recovered. Since VB 4.2.5 was so old...I had really hoped that the migration to modern XF would have been a big boost to site traffic (traffic increase)...but so far site traffic is down roughly 50% (via Google Analytics data).

I'm also wondering if links to other sites was affected by the migration. Not sure if you've heard of "Skimlinks". It's an indirect way of earning some passive extra income from links posted within threads on the site. When folks view the links or they click on them...you earn a little extra income.

Income from Skimlinks has also been greatly reduced (since the VB to XF migration)...which is why I wonder if this was caused by the traffic decrease & links to other sites being affected when the VB database was imported into XF.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Was the migration from 4.x or 5.x?

Were you using vBseo or DBSEO? You may have already answered that. If so, you may want to add some extra redirections in .htaccess.

VB was 4.2.5. Site was using DBSEO. Yes...I was wondering if something was not quite right in the .htaccess.

Would it help if I posted some .htaccess info here (or PM you with it)...to see if something may be missing or not setup correctly in the .htaccess file?

 

[djbaxter]

You can post it yes although I've never used DBSEO and do have experience converting vBSEO links. The DBSEO structure for your old links might help though. Have you tried support for DBSEO to get their suggestions?

Dragonbyte also has an redirtection addon (I've never used it though):

Unmaintained - [DBTech] DragonByte SEO URLs to XenForo 2

THIS RELEASE IS UNSUPPORTED AND PROVIDED ENTIRELY AS-IS WITH NO GUARANTEES, WARRANTIES OR PROMISE IT WILL WORK FOR YOU. This script lets you import your old DragonByte SEO configuration and have any supported URLs redirected to XF2. Which URLs...

xenforo.com

 

[Alfuzzy]

You can post it yes although I've never used DBSEO and do have experience converting vBSEO links. The DBSEO structure for your old links might help though.

Was thinking of posting some .htaccess info here...to see if anything seems unusual (or missing). Could be DBSEO related or otherwise.

Have you tried support for DBSEO to get their suggestions?

Yes I have in the past...wasn't the best experience.

Dragonbyte also has an redirtection addon (I've never used it though):

Unmaintained - [DBTech] DragonByte SEO URLs to XenForo 2

THIS RELEASE IS UNSUPPORTED AND PROVIDED ENTIRELY AS-IS WITH NO GUARANTEES, WARRANTIES OR PROMISE IT WILL WORK FOR YOU. This script lets you import your old DragonByte SEO configuration and have any supported URLs redirected to XF2. Which URLs...

xenforo.com

I don't have that add-on installed...but I do have this one installed "DragonByte Tech: SEO Redirects" (that seems similar). I couldn't find a link to it to post a link here. Here's a screenshot of it from the Admin addon area:



Thanks

 

[djbaxter]

Your version is probably more recent.

What I'd want to see are what format the old DBSEO links were using That was the key for vBSEO.

What is your forum URL?

 

[RichDevman]

I just found this thread because I am doing an import of a couple large Vbulletin forums myself.

My guess is your url redirects are not working correctly. You have websites that have links to your old forum and my guess is that many of those links are not redirected properly and are broken. That would be easy enough to check using Google webmaster Tools.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Thanks much for the reply & info Richieboy67. What you said sounds like a definite possibility. Since it's been a while since the vB to XF migration...I've been told that external links as you described are probably permanently lost since Google has indexed/crawled the site many times (of course it would be great if this were not true).

If this is easy to check using Google Webmaster Tools/Google Search Console...can you explain how please?

Thanks

 

[RichDevman]

I usually use ahrefs and screaming frog for these things but I believe you can do it using the link below. Look for external links. It should show you incoming links that are broken on your site.

 

[RichDevman]

I forgot the link: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9049606?hl=en

 

[Alfuzzy]

Thanks. Did that...and the "Links Report" seems to report Internal Links & External Links. The Internal Links number probably looks pretty good. The External Links number (from memory)...looks very low compared to what it was before the vB to XF migration.

 

[RichDevman]

Unfortunately I can't help you with that. I'm knew to Xenforo. You definitely have to fix that though because it is most definitely hurting your seo.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Unfortunately I can't help you with that. I'm knew to Xenforo. You definitely have to fix that though because it is most definitely hurting your seo.

Someone told me since it's been a long time since the website migration from vB to XF...and Google has indexed/crawled the site many times since then...that fixing this is not possible (just got to start over again with external links). Do you know if this is true (or anyone else know if this is true)?

Thanks

 

[RichDevman]

I'm not really sure but you could find the most important or active broken links and manually add redirects using htaccess.

 

[KevinL]

You could try using this to see if you are getting a lot of 404's You are able to redirect to the correct links if they are broken within the admin

Custom 404 Page by Siropu

This add-on allows you to customize your 404 error page, keep track of missing URLs and redirect them to new pages. It comes with a basic error message but you can customize the page the way you want it using HTML and XF template syntax, having...

xenforo.com

 

[Alfuzzy]

You could try using this to see if you are getting a lot of 404's You are able to redirect to the correct links if they are broken within the admin

Custom 404 Page by Siropu

This add-on allows you to customize your 404 error page, keep track of missing URLs and redirect them to new pages. It comes with a basic error message but you can customize the page the way you want it using HTML and XF template syntax, having...

xenforo.com

Thanks much. I'll give it a try.