Miscellaneous Hacks - phpBB2 Thread URL Redirection Script

This is a very simple script I wrote after I converted two forums from phpBB2 to vBulletin.

The problem was that there were dozens of pages across the web linking to particular phpBB2 threads, ie:
http://www.website.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1234

Of course now those links are dead, as the correct URL would be:
http://www.website.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2345

My simple script is just one single file that you upload to your forum root folder. It doesn't modify any code, doesn't require any installation, and zero configuration is required (it uses the includes/config.php to get the database settings.

If someone clicks on a link to viewtopic.php (either pointing to a thread or a post), then it will link to that same thread at showthread.php.

Installation Instructions
Upload viewtopic.php to your vBulletin root folder, eg /forum/

Working demo
Thread name "The Apogee Interview series and the weekly Prey update"
Old phpBB2 URL: http://www.bluesbrotherscentral.com/...pic.php?t=2374
New vB URL: http://www.bluesbrotherscentral.com/...ead.php?t=2190

Notes

• Non existent threads will simply redirect to index.php
• This file assumes that your vBulletin was installed to the same URL as your phpBB2 path, eg /forum/ rather than /phpbb/ and /vb/, or /forum/ and /newforum/
• This will only work if your 'post' and 'thread' tables have values in the 'importpostid' and 'importthreadid' columns

Comments and suggestions welcome

Update
June 20, 2007 - Added changes suggested by 'propeller', now uses 301 redirect for search engines.

[bbcentral]

*Reserved

[FSHD]

Thank you so much for this. What a life saver!!!

[FSHD]

I haven't migrated my board yet to the new vb board. I haven't done the latest phpBB upgrade which came out in December because I knew that I was going to move. I guess that I need to do that in order to use this mod. That's OK...I'm just so happy to have this mod.

I'll upgrade tonight and migrate the boards tomorrow.

[Hornstar]

What happens if someone wants to post a link to a phpbb forum site, will it change that link as well? or only links which contain your site name in it?

I dont need this, but thought i'd check the above, as that would be important.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Are you aware that ImpEx also contain a standard script to do this? (and is supporting more then only phpBB)

[bbcentral]

If I'd known that it contained a script, then wouldn't I have implemented it on my forum 12 months ago instead of writing my own script?

Actually, now I see it.

I REALLY wish this had been more clear at the time when I did the upgrade.

It's been buried away here:
forum/impex/tools/

Anyway from the readme, the url is:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=178161

I still prefer mine though, I don't want logging or 404 pages or anything like that.

Mine has 1 step, upload the file.

The impex version has many steps:
1) Edit the 404.php file to point to the 404 page, and also include your database user/pass
2) Choose between a 404 and a 301 redirect
3) Create the 404_actions table in your database
4) Setup a .htaccess file to point to 404.php

But it's up to you, you can either upload my file and do nothing else, or you can use the one in impex and spend 5 minutes configuring it, after reading a 163 line readme file.

[bbcentral]

Originally Posted by hornstar1337

What happens if someone wants to post a link to a phpbb forum site, will it change that link as well? or only links which contain your site name in it?

I dont need this, but thought i'd check the above, as that would be important.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what you were talking about, but I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this script.

Let's just say you used phpBB2 for a while, maybe a few years. Not everybody would link directly to the forum home page, there might be hundreds of websites directly linking to threads on your forum.
Now, when you switch to vBulletin, anyone who clicks a link to one of those threads from another site will be shown your 404 page, even though the thread still exists. This is because the URL for that thread has now changed.

With my script in place, if someone clicks on a phpBB2 link on another site, and you have since switched to vBulletin, instead of giving a "Page Not Found" error it will silently redirect you to the new vBulletin thread.

Try the 2 demo links in my first post and it should help you understand

[Soliloquy]

This looks like exactly what I need! Except my old phpBB forum was in the /forum directory and the new vBulletin forum is in the root directory. Is there any way to change it?

[feldon23]

I mentioned this here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163852