Best way to redirect my old forum to vb using 301

[Bellinis]

A few days ago we launched our new vb forum. Before we used ubb.threads.
The old forum was installed at /forum, the new one at /board.

I've now put the following in my root .htaccess:

RewriteRule ^forum.* http://www.domain.com/board [NC,L,R]

This redirects all traffic from /forum/* to my new board, but I don't think this is the most SE friendly way.

These were the basic links on my old board:
http://www.domain.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?Cat=
http://www.domain.com/forum/faq.php?Cat=
http://www.domain.com/forum/search.php?Cat=

Links to my board categories looked like this:
http://www.domain.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=eating
http://www.domain.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=drinking

And links to topics like this:
http://www.domain.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=20728
http://www.domain.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=23798&page=&view=&sb=5&o=

Now what would be the best way to redirect traffic from my old board to the new one?
Should I create redirect links for all categories?

My knowledge of using htaccess is very poor (therefor I purchased vbseo haha), so I hope someone can give me some examples on how to handle this.

Thank you very much in advance...

Bellinis

[Bellinis]

Anyone ? :(

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

PM sent

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Hello Bellinis,

Assuming the following:
- your old ubb resides in "forum/" and new vB forum in "board/"
- you have converted all your old topics so that they have the thread ID in old and new forums!

Please try to put the following in the ROOT .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=eating board/forumdisplay.php?f=12 [L,R=301] (Note: put the *corresponding forum ID* from your new forums here instead of "12")
RewriteRule ^forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=drinking board/forumdisplay.php?f=18 [L,R=301]
... etc. : the same for ALL subforums frmo your old instance


RewriteRule ^forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=([0-9]+) board/showthread.php?t=$1 [L,R=301]

That should work I believe.

[Bellinis]

The thread ID's post and member ID's all have changed, so what shall I do ?

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Oh.. if there is no direct relation between old IDs and new ones, I suppose there is nothing can be done here, sorry. You can still have subforums redirects if you'd like to - it is better than nothing

[Bellinis]

Yes, I was affraid so

Ok, I will do the category forwards, but what do I put in my .htacces for 'everything else > forum root' ?

And which .htacces do I edit ? The one on my rootfolder or in my /forum folder ? I guess the root

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

You can use the same rewrite rule as you quoted in the first post. (but it should go AFTER your subforums redirects)

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Here is the simple php script to redirect you UBB forum links to a new vB ones.

1. So, you will add this in your ROOT .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^forum/postlist.php ubb-vb-redirect.php?rtype=f&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

2. AND create ubb-vb-redirect.php file in the root:

<?
$forum_redirects = array(

'eating' => 24,
'drinking' => 21,

// enter ALL your forums relations here
// left-side is your ubb Category title
// right-side is vB forum ID

);

$vb_url = 'http://www.yourdomain.com/board/';
if($_GET['rtype']=='f')
$url = $vb_url.'forumdisplay.php?f='.$forum_redirects[$_GET['Board']];
else
$url = $vb_url;

Header ("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
Header('Location: '.$url);
?>

Highlighted in bold is your new forums (vB) path - "board/" in your case.

3. Then just add your forums list and that's all

[Bellinis]

Error 400 :(

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Update: the slightly modified PHP code did the trick
Best way to redirect my old forum to vb using 301

[Bellinis]

Thank you so much for your help Oleg!