new site going from site.com/oldurl to site.com/forum/newurl

[n8ster]

I haven't installed VBSEO yet on my largest site because frankly I'm scared to death to change anything for fear that I will lose my Google ranking.

Now, I'm starting to consider installing it and I have a question. Currently I have my forums installed in the root folder of my server. For a while I've wanted to move them to a /forum/ folder but once again I've been scared to death to change anything.

If I'm considering installing VBSEO does it make sense to change folders at the same time?
So I'd be going from
site.com/
to
site.com/forum/

Is it possible in VBSEO to make it redirect from the root to the new folder and new url or does it only handle the forum url?

Finally, in terms of search engines picking up your new url structure in vbseo... would adding a folder hurt the process or is it the same as changing to the new urls anyways. I guess I'm not sure if folders carry more weight than urls.

Thanks.

[Mert Gökçeimam]

Hello Nathan ,

If i were you i would install vBSEO immediately but will not change the current folder structure you have. What you can do is install a portal page and have index.php as your portal page. Then rename vBulletin index.php to forum.php and create a CRR to redirect forum.php to forums/

It is way better then changing your main folder.

[n8ster]

It is way better then changing your main folder.

So, it sounds like changing the folder is a bigger deal then the URL change that VBSEO makes right?

Then rename vBulletin index.php to forum.php and create a CRR to redirect forum.php to forums/

I'm sorry but you lost me here. I know how to rename the vbulletin index page so I understand how that works... but you still talk about /forums/ folder. Are you moving folders in this situation or not? Maybe you can "Dumb it down" for me

BTW, it's not a simple portal page I'm installing. It's Joomla.

[briansol]

i'm a big fan of 'faking' it too.
i outlined the process here:
forum files from /<forum-threads> to /forums/<forum-threads>

[Mert Gökçeimam]

You will just need to create a Custom Rewrite Rule as following

'^forum.php$' => 'forums'

As you can see we have a similar format at vBSEO also. vBulletin index is located at http://www.vbseo.com/forums/ however the actual files are within root.

[n8ster]

I guess I wasn't concerned about the forum.php file at all since that's easy to rename and use within vbulletin. I was worried that URLs and other files between the two applications (Joomla and vbulletin) would overlap.

[n8ster]

So, I "think" after reading the link that Brian listed it's not possible for VBSEO to both move to a new folder and rewrite the urls at the same time.

Am I correct in saying that or is it just a really bad idea?

Thanks.

[Mert Gökçeimam]

If you move your forums to another folder , all your current indexed urls needs to be reindexed again. You can redirect them via .htaccess however we strongly advise you not to do that. And if this is an established site , i would not do the move.

[n8ster]

If you move your forums to another folder , all your current indexed urls needs to be reindexed again. You can redirect them via .htaccess however we strongly advise you not to do that. And if this is an established site , i would not do the move.

OK... I know I'm slow here and thanks for the help. But how is that different than when you install vbseo in the first place? Aren't you reindexing the URLs either way?

[Mert Gökçeimam]

No , when you install vBSEO all your existing urls will be 301 redirected to your new format. showthread.php?t=xx will be directed to static version. Only the indexed urls will be replaced but you'll not loose your rankings ( in most cases you'll have better rankings )

[n8ster]

ok, got it... Thanks!

I guess I thought they could both be 301 redirected. I guess that's not the case. Thanks for clearing that up.