Moving to Xenforo from vBulletin 4

So, my staff and I have decided that its a good idea to move to Xenforo because its more modern and has more features than vBulletin 4. We're more than likely going to be moving to the latest version of XF in the next day or so.

How do you redirect old vBulletin 4 urls to their respective urls on XF?

 

XF will do most of it and there are scripts written by users to accent it. Some will have to use a htaccess. In fact there is someone over there that actually wrote a tool to help you create htaccess from vbseo if you used that as well.

 

Just make sure when you import that you choose to retain all ID's.

 

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/vbulletin-4-x-url-redirection.120/

The zip file the contains 'dummy' showthread, viewforum, etc php files. You upload them then add a couple lines to your .htaccess.

If you run into trouble Jake Bunce over on XF.com is like a ninja with the URL redirect. He's helped me a couple of times.

 

We actually got 2k more pageviews than we usually do yesterday. Hopefully its a sign of things to come.

 

Oh, cool! How do you like the move so far? Your site looks great

 

I'm really liking it so far. Our user activity has improved as well and thank you!

 

Awesome! How do your members seem to like it? My biggest concern about moving would be my members. I personally am always on board with the latest and greatest, but we have a lot of people who are not so tech-savvy and would probably be really annoyed at me for switching stuff. "If it ain't broke" and all that.

 

Our members are enjoying the new software. You can see their reactions on our Welcome to xenforo thread. I agree, if its not broken, then why fix it? We needed the more features that Xenforo offers out the gate over vBulletin 4. Plus, we weren't too happy with the performance issues that we sometimes had.

 

The last thing you need to worry about in a move to XenForo is non tech savy members. I was worried as well and they were all glad and found it more intuitive to use.

 

I sometimes miss xenforo
I've switched so many softwares over the pass two years that i used to worry about my members getting confused but it was alway sa mostly positive experience!

Glad to hear things are working for you @cpvr i need to pop in there again

 

Hey @cpvr, how are things going SEO-wise compared to vB? Have you noticed an initial drop or spike in search engine traffic? How about general forum activity (people online, new posts, new registrations, etc)

Thanks!

 

It dropped for 2 days from what I can see then bounced right back.

 

Do you guys have a news thread or anything to show what the members think about the switch?

 

Hey @Brandon, they have one here:

http://www.virtualpetlist.com/threads/welcome-to-vpl-xenforo-1-0.18661/

I have been stalking it for a while now

 

Thanks @Peace, it looks very positive.

 

Yeah, it does! Their experience has definitely inspired us to give it a shot too. I opened up our xF test forum to some users today, and also got a lot of positive feedback. My biggest worry is that xF 2.0 will come out next year, the day after we pay to have all of our vB mods ported over to 1.2 lol

I'm also tempted to wait for a CMS, instead of trying to rearrange the Resource Manager to fit our needs.

 

We've had a few angry members. Especially through PM but I knew that would happen.

 

Hey @Iconic, what were the biggest complaints via PM? Were you able to fix them, or are some of them just based on a general hatred of change? Thanks!

 

The usergroups we have in place (approved artist, approved programmer etc). I was totally shocked the amount of people that really depend on it on the site, I think I got all up about 10-15 PM/VM about it. \

I was able to fix it through the join user group mod. I had a few about hatred, I know there is a couple of members who loathed it so much from what I seen and was told.


Our traffic has improved so much I think @cpvr can confirm it.