How to handle changes to forum title/description

[serphog]

I run a smartphone forum and have a forum for each model. The company announced a new model, but it's a slight departure from the previous model. It makes sense to edit the old forum to include posts on both phones. So, instead of 400a, it would be 400a and 400b. I'm concerned this will affect my current URL's (it will) and the affects on the engines. I don't want to create a whole seperate forum for 400b. On the flipside, I don't want to change my forum title which would affect my URLs.

Should I change the description? Should I add a new forum?

I'm trying to come up with what is best for my users and from an SEO perspective. Without the latter, no one would find the forum.

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Hello,

with new vBSEO3.0.0RC4 you will be able to define "forum slugs" in config file, and you can have the same forum_title part in URL (you define it), although forum titles are changed in vBulletin admincp.

[mdvaldosta]

THAT's really helpful. One of the reasons I haven't included the forum directory in thread url's was because I was afraid of having to change the forum name.

[NeutralizeR]

Hello,

with new vBSEO3.0.0RC4 you will be able to define "forum slugs" in config file, and you can have the same forum_title part in URL (you define it), although forum titles are changed in vBulletin admincp.

I've changed my two forum's names, how can i use "forum slugs"?

vBSEO 3.0.0 RC5 installed.

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

You should manually modify config_vbseo.php file for this. An example would be:

    $vbseo_forum_slugs = array(
12 => 'custom-forum-title'
    ); 

[NeutralizeR]

You should manually modify config_vbseo.php file for this. An example would be:

    $vbseo_forum_slugs = array(
12 => 'custom-forum-title'
    ); 

Thank you, it's working... but i thought it redirects the old forum url to the new one.

Example:
/msn-goz-kirpmalar/ (old)
/msn-goz-kirpmalari-winks/ (new)

I need to redirect /msn-goz-kirpmalar/ => /msn-goz-kirpmalari-winks/

How can i do it?

[NeutralizeR]

Define Custom 301 Redirects BETA
Added:
'msn-ifadeler-emoticons/' => 'msn-ifadeleri-emoticons/'
'msn-goz-kirpmalar/' => 'msn-goz-kirpmalari-winks/'

And it worked I'm a genius :P

1-) How long should they stay there?
2-) Will these rules use much cpu power (apache) when there are more than 500 online users?

[Oleg Ignatiuk]

Yes, you should use redirect if you want to have new URLs instead of old ones.
1. as long as you will get some hits refered from other sites to your old URLs
2. it doesn't have noticable performance impact