Automated redirect for old post/thread links

Richard · #1 August 16th, 2008, 07:32 PM

Folks,

Okay I have written some php code to automagically redirect old forum threads from shrapnelcommunity to the correct thread on forum.shrapnelgames.com. Essentially what I did when we migrated is I stored off the referential ID links between the following items between the new and old boards:

Users
Posts
Threads
Attachments
Polls

My plan is to use this data to one by one put in code to redirect (via the 404 call from apache) any incoming link for the above items to the new links in the new forum. This will resolve any old links in the forums and will also, over time, replace bad links on search engines.

So far I have gotten this to work for threads and am working ont he other items.

What I need is first off people to test that this works for threads. Keep in mind that means links to old threads, not individual posts. What I also need is links to some of the other items listed above so I have a testbed to work from with real links people still can find in old posts/links/etc.

So far I have tested this with the old thread links in Ich's signature and those have worked.

Fyron · #2 August 16th, 2008, 08:12 PM

Out of curiosity, why where the old ID values not simply preserved, and inserted into the vbulletin database? That would have made supporting the old link namespace a simple mod_rewrite rule.

Would it be too late to re-import ID values, thus absolving the need for such complex conversion scripts?

Richard · #3 August 16th, 2008, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyron

Out of curiosity, why where the old ID values not simply preserved, and inserted into the vbulletin database? That would have made supporting the old link namespace a simple mod_rewrite rule.

The vb import process tries to do things in a very clean way and because of that assigns a new post id/thread id starting at zero. It does preserve a concept of an import ID. I had written something to update all of the postID/threadID's to the old numbers but the one sticking point was threaded mode. Due to the way the parent/child post setup in vb works there was no easy way via sql to update the posts without breaking the parent posts used for threaded mode.

So instead I took some code from the vb import author and extended it a little.

Ballbarian · #4 August 16th, 2008, 08:44 PM

Ballbarian · #5 August 16th, 2008, 08:49 PM

This old image link is not working either:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...73-AomOrc3.JPG

Edit:
And here is an old link that used to go to the dom3 forums that gives me a permissions error instead of the page not found:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...at=&Board=dom3

Richard · #6 August 17th, 2008, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ballbarian

This old image link is not working either:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...73-AomOrc3.JPG

Edit:
And here is an old link that used to go to the dom3 forums that gives me a permissions error instead of the page not found:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...at=&Board=dom3

Okay all old uploads should redirect now so #1 should work. For #2 what I did is anything with postlist.php goes to a generic page on the new forum. Since we have no way to determine what the old crappy (editorial comment on UBB software

) word based forum names to the new forum numbers we can't do a better automated solution...

Richard · #7 August 17th, 2008, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ballbarian

Okay all of these should work now. Let me know...

Ballbarian · #8 August 17th, 2008, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard

Okay all of these should work now. Let me know...

Great!

All appear to be working now with one exception:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Number=528292

That old thread link was working with some of your changes (earlier), but now goes to the 404 page.

vfb · #9 August 16th, 2008, 08:58 PM

Sounds like a great feature!

But my old embedded links do not seem to be working either, eg:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...ev=#Post595147

Even this does not work:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=595147

Is it because I'm not linking to the top thread?

Richard · #10 August 17th, 2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vfb

Sounds like a great feature!

But my old embedded links do not seem to be working either, eg:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...ev=#Post595147

Even this does not work:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=595147

Is it because I'm not linking to the top thread?

Okay so the problem here is the way UBB handled things. The problem is they used the same script to refer to threads and posts without an easy way to know via URI string which they were doing. So for Balbarians posts above they work because there is a reference to the thread. For your's it won't work because your referring to showflat to a post, not a threadid. Posts are supposed to use a different script name (I think it's showthreaded). I am going to on individual posts next but a direct link to a post using showflat is just going to be broken.