I'm running a few thousand users phpbb forum for over 3 years now and I've been thinking for quite some time of migrating to vbulletin. I have some worries though; 1) Current phpbb forum is indexed by google very well even though I haven't done any particular SEO stuff. What will happen after migrating to vbulletin? Will all the good old google links become invalid? If so, what do I need to do to have it all re-indexed again and can I somehow prepare the planning of migration better? 2) In the current forum there are some forum areas which I'd like to join in to one area. With phpbb this joining two areas seems ridiculously complicated. Has to be done basically article by article. Can I join these forum areas somehow easier with the migration process or with vbulletin? If not, is it possible to make the other area a subforum of the other? 3) What other trouble should I expect to see? I've read quite a lot about the subject and got the feeling that the migration itself should be otherwise rather smooth?! Luckily my phpbb is basically mods free and very basic for exactly the reason of future migrations. I'd be more than happy if anyone could enlighten me with these issues. Cheers, Jack Reacher
Why not wait for phpbb3? It's at RC4 and is very stable as is, however the gold release will be soon. Check it out if you haven't already.
There are reasons why I need to go for vbulletin. I'm still looking forward to phpbb3 as well for other forums. So no one knows about the issues I originally asked?
1) Jack Reacher, all your indexed pages will be deleted once you migrated from phpBB to vB, this is because the structure isin't working on phpBB as on vB. But I admit, I personally think vB is much more SE friendlier, and it is worth every single penny. 2) Yes, merging two forums is very easy with vB, vB is as you've probably heard a very powerful forum software, it is very rich in features and moderating forums has never been easier. It is very easy and not even complicated in any way to merge two forums into one. Can be done easily 3) Yes, using the 'ImpEx' vBulletin provides is very good, and you shouldn't encounter any difficulties along the DB migration. Just a tip, first of all you will have to install vB and then install ImpEx and migrate the DB you used on phpBB, remember do not use same admin nick on the new vB installation (I mean not the same as in phpBB), if you do this, you shouldn't encounter any difficulties. vBulletin has good documents related to migration, and it is a great guide along this migration. Just in addition, vBulletin has great support, so if you do encounter any issues, just open a thread or a support ticket, and you should get a respond in no time! I hope this helps you out, Meti
Yes, the google links you can say bye-bye to. You might be able to do some .htaccess rewrite rules but it won't be easy. The people in the vBulletin community forums can assist. I am not sure if I'm understanding you right but you should be able to just change the forum id from one to another using a notepad or phpMyAdmin. And yes, you can easily create subforums in either vBulletin or phpBB3. The migration should run trouble-free since you haven't mod'ed up your phpBB. Alot of the community mods for phpbb break when you try to migrate so I think you'll be fine. The biggest one is losing your Google indexes. Hope this helps and have "fun" with your migration.
Thank you very much WatchOut and iMountain for your tips and information. I purchased vbulleting and now I've done the migration which worked out really good. Did one test migration first and left that as a development forum. Day later did the real migration and it was super smooth. Only issues I had was with some silly default settings for migrated users in vbulletin, but they could be fixed easily. I'm impressed how smooth it all worked out in the end. Tonight I'll install phpbb3 to my wifes site and I'm quite keen to see how that feels after getting used to vbulletin.
There's a script at VB.org that redirects the phpbb urls currently indexed in search engines to the vbulletin ones. Very easy to install. I love VBulletin, worth every penny. Haven't tried phpBB3 though, maybe for a new forum.
I have migrated my forum from phpbb2 to vbulletin 3.6.1 and it wasn't difficult at all. They have a great tool called impex that takes care of the move. If you plan to buy vbseo then you can redirect the url's too (with the help of vbseo staff). To me it's a good bargain; vbulletin currently has a lot to offer and admionistrating it is a breeze.
your indexed page will be affected. You should be able to maintain your onpage seo if everything is done the same way on the new template. There aint much for you to worry if you have a large number of regular users.