vBulletin 4 (with dbSEO) to xenForo

[thrddvl]

Hi all,

I want to change my forum software from vbulletin to xenForo but i have a big question (i've searched the forum and i don't take an answer);

If i do this my forum links on the Google will be unavailable (because i don't find a way about dbSEO link convert) and i want to use default xenForo link stracture. In this case will Google take my site on the blacklist or something like that? (i know my site's traffic will be effected.)

Thank you for your comments.

 

[Chris D]

I'm not sure if @DragonByte Tech have a solution for this. They do a lot of XF work now.

That said I'm fairly certain people have solved this before. I'm sure a solution can be found once you are licensed, though it may depend on whether IDs have been excluded from your URLs.

 

[thrddvl]

I'm not sure if @DragonByte Tech have a solution for this. They do a lot of XF work now.

That said I'm fairly certain people have solved this before. I'm sure a solution can be found once you are licensed, though it may depend on whether IDs have been excluded from your URLs.

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your reply; then i'll ask to @DragonByte Tech, do you have a solution from dbSEO to xenForo or is there a planned work for xenForo SEO in your future plans (like xfSEO). Actually, if I can be sure that there will not be any problems on Google side, I will switch to xenForo and use the default link structure. I'm just afraid of Google blocking me.

 

[janslu]

I've done the switch from similar config last year on my forum. You can create rewrite rules to "translate" dbseo rules to xf rules, and a lot depends on the format you are using in dbseo. If you have a way to catch an identifier for a thread or forum in the dbseo format, you can translate it to xf format like this:

            #thread paginated 
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+)/index([\d]+).html /forum/threads/$1/page-$2 [R=301,L]
       
            #new in thread
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+-new)/ /forum/showthread.php?t=$1&page=99999 [R=301,L]
       
            #thread
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+)/ /forum/threads/$1/ [R=301,L]
       
            #specific page in forum list
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f([\d]+)/index([\d]+).html /forum/forums/$1/page-$2 [R=301,L]
       
            #forum
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f([\d]+)/ /forum/forums/$1/ [R=301,L]

I have grabbed a lot of sample links from my server logs and made sure they all work fine in a test environment before the big switch.

 

[thrddvl]

I've done the switch from similar config last year on my forum. You can create rewrite rules to "translate" dbseo rules to xf rules, and a lot depends on the format you are using in dbseo. If you have a way to catch an identifier for a thread or forum in the dbseo format, you can translate it to xf format like this:

            #thread paginated
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+)/index([\d]+).html /forum/threads/$1/page-$2 [R=301,L]
      
            #new in thread
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+-new)/ /forum/showthread.php?t=$1&page=99999 [R=301,L]
      
            #thread
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f[\d]+/.+-([\d]+)/ /forum/threads/$1/ [R=301,L]
      
            #specific page in forum list
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f([\d]+)/index([\d]+).html /forum/forums/$1/page-$2 [R=301,L]
      
            #forum
            RewriteRule [^/]+-f([\d]+)/ /forum/forums/$1/ [R=301,L]

I have grabbed a lot of sample links from my server logs and made sure they all work fine in a test environment before the big switch.

Hi Janslu,

Thank you for your help. May i question for you? I think this rules for htaccess, i'm using the nginx; is there a solution for nginx? Or can i turn these rules to nginx?

 

[Chris D]

Please bear in mind that support is only available to licensed customers, so when you are licensed, please post in the relevant forum and it seems that a solution will be available at that time.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Thank you for your reply; then i'll ask to @DragonByte Tech, do you have a solution from dbSEO to xenForo or is there a planned work for xenForo SEO in your future plans (like xfSEO).

We don't have any rewrite rules to translate DBSEO URLs to XenForo URLs, as DBSEO lets you create your own URL formats so it would be a monumental task to manually create rewrite rules for each and every customer. We also have no plans for a XF SEO product, as the SEO in XF is very good out of the box.


Fillip