I have a forum phpBB2 running 4 years ago with a mod rewrite to me is different from the url as the leaves in mod phpbb-seo
How could upgrade to phpbb3 without losing the old urls?

Well, I'm not sure you really want to keep the exact same URL as before, in most cases it's possible but you may want to go for an even better URL standard as before and take advantage of the new possibilities offered for phpBB3.

The idea is that 301 redirecting from the old URL standard to the new one is made very easy with the zero duplicate included in our SEO premod.

All you would need would be to keep you old rewriterules up and running in your new .htaccess and the zero duplicate would do the rest.

Please note that most URL rewriting mod (not ours obviously) do keep most of the phpBB possible duplicates, when they do not add some, so some HTTP 301 redirecting will in far most cases be involved to reduce all duplicates.

Could you provide with more info about your phpBB2 URL standard ?

Hello thank you for responding


I wish first and foremost get the same rule url earlier, so that the addresses are always the same and do not change, I do not want to make 301 for the moment does not come into my plans

My actual rewrite .htaccess :

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?p=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?p=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?t=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=newest [L,NC]

RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [L,NC]

RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]


RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewforum.php?f=$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=next [L,NC]

#my mod
RewriteRule ^forum([0-9]*).html viewforum.php?f=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic([0-9]*).html viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^profile([0-9]*).html profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^search-author-([a-zA-Z0-9_-]*).html search.php?&search_author=$1 [L]
#This is in case username on your phpBB come like FirstName+LastName
RewriteRule ^search-author-([a-zA-Z0-9+-]*).html search.php?&search_author=$1 [L]

leaving the url of my forum as follows: http://www.foroz.org/foroz/index.php

I would like to see all url was always like, which would be the next steps?

Well, there is something impossible to do with our mod, they just can't output as many duplicates as the one you are using (most likely able2know one).

For the same topic you have aboutxx.html, topicxx.html, topic-xx.html, ntopicxx.hmtl, ptopicxx.html plus the all the post-xx.html from the same topic page (eg as many as post per page), plus, if there is a poll view-pollxx.hmlt, all together, it's really a disaster for ranking. And I did not mention pagination ...

So there will be 301 redirecting in all case, to at least reduces these numerous duplicates cases.

Looking at site:http://www.foroz.org/foroz, it seems that you are using a proper robots.txt and mostly use topicxx.html for topics and forumxx.html for forums, so you could just use the simple mod rewrite as is and keep these like they are now, we would still need to take care about the other possible cases to properly redirect them (and not throw a 404), but it could be a solution to keep your current ulrs in your case.

It's of course up to you to decide, but I strongly encourage you to try all the possibilities offered by our mod rewrite before you make up your mind, it something to think about now, before you convert. After it will be a bit more complexe SEOwise (you don't want to redirect to a new url every other day).

Many forum, including phpBB SEO, went through a full redirect like this, when it's done well, eg all the sudden and without hesitation on the ending urls, it's working very nice and fast, without even any change in SERPs or SE referrals during the process, the new url should just take the place of the older ones at the same position in SERPs, before they eventually go higher thanks to the duplicate reduction