Very excited! Converted my community to xF

[Jamie]

I run a smaller Christian community and had bought another Christian community about 4 months ago and I have been wanting to merge the sites under my IPB site.

Then xF came out and even thought it's Beta, my excitement got the best of me, so tonight after testing, asking questions and getting ready I converted my two lives sites and merged them together at the same time.

As I said, my community is rather small, and my reach within Google was ok, but nothing worth worrying about with this change.

I am excited about running my site again, I am eager to work on it and learn how xF works. I don't code, but I am wanting to learn just because of the way people that do code talk about this platform.

Thanks to Kier, Mike and Ashley for coming together and giving us something worth running and something to get excited about! Here's to the future!!

Jamie

 

[FreshFroot]

Nice to see you here

Glad you made the change!

BTW you made or found a IPB importer?

 

[Floris]

Hey Jamie,

I am glad you managed to figure out the missing fields in that IPB build and could use vBulletin to convert data and get it into xenforo. I am glad xenfans was able to help, and I am glad you managed to finalize your import yourself.

Good luck with your converted community.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Congrats Jamie...

 

[Jamie]

BTW you made or found a IPB importer?

No, I imported it through the route of IPB > vB 3.8 > xF

Hey Jamie,

I am glad you managed to figure out the missing fields in that IPB build and could use vBulletin to convert data and get it into xenforo. I am glad xenfans was able to help, and I am glad you managed to finalize your import yourself.

Good luck with your converted community.

Yes, merging two communities and going through IPB > vB to xF wouldn't be my most favorite thing , but it did work out and I am glad to be running xF! Thanks for your help!

Congrats Jamie...

Thanks Anthony! I am excited once again to work on my site and develop it more. xF gives me the confidence and that 'spark' to work to get the site to come alive!

Jamie

 

[Jeffin]

Awesome.

 

[Peggy]

Yayyyyy I'm glad it worked out for you Jamie! And your site really looks nice.

 

[ArnyVee]

That's great! Congrats on getting the sites merged and setup on xF!

 

[Blandt]

looking good

 

[Floris]

looking good

Yeah, I ended up browsing it for a while

 

[Jamie]

Yeah, I ended up browsing it for a while

That's great to hear! Thanks again for your help, without it I wouldn't have made the move so quickly.

Jamie

 

[Dean]

Looks great Jamie. Seems like just a few months ago we were discussing the various nuances of the vb->ipb transition.... oh wait, it was just a few months ago.

 

[Jamie]

Yes, how time so quickly huh?

We had even talked about me holding off until after it became stable, but two things were in play. One, from the looks of this site, it seems pretty stable, and Two, I will be moving from NH to NC in January, so I wanted to go ahead and convert and get the kinks worked out with my members before then because for the month of Jan or Feb I will have very little time to do much with the site.

Jamie

 

[Blandt]

The site looks very good ... IPB looks bulky in comparison

 

[Dean]

...I will be moving from NH to NC in January...

Hope the moving truck has snow tires.

(not a move I'd want to make at that time of year)

 

[Jamie]

Hope the moving truck has snow tires.

(not a move I'd want to make at that time of year)

I hear ya! Snow, Sleet or Rain... We'll get there..

Jamie

 

[CTXMedia]

What sort of feedback are you getting from your membership?

 

[Jamie]

Well it's still early, but the member I love the most, but is also the most critical of ANYTHING I do loves it! The other feedback I have gotten so far has been positive not one negative remark yet.

We will see as the week goes on.. A lot of my members are busy on the weekends with family and Church, so it will take a week or so to get a real feel.

Honestly though, and I know this wouldn't be a good approach for someone that runs their forum for money, mine is simple a hobby and an outreach, but I feel like a parent in this change.. I 'know' what's is best for them even if they don't in the beginning. I have seen what Kier did with vB 3.8 and envision this to be even greater then that in 5-10 years.

Jamie

 

[kkm323]

i am sure you faced a lot of difficulties

1. merging to forums
2. importing the 2 forums to from IPB to VB
3. final, importing the vb --> to xf

my only concern for you is redirecting the old URL to the new one
if this is a new site then its OK! otherwise, you would loss a lot of traffic

(I'm just saying)

good luck you've choose the best forum software ever

 

[Jamie]

This site is 19 months old. We do have some indexing in Google and I understand we will lose some of that, but with the site being fairly new, and the members that are active a steady bunch it's a move I thought about and was/am willing to make.

The bigger picture as I see it is... Content is King.. by switching over to xF I understand I will have some loss of traffic, but I am banking on this system being easier to use, which will mean more activity from my members which equals more content which in the end will hopefully get me a better ranking and better index rate in Google.

Time will tell and I will post up some results after some time has passed.

Jamie