domain name change

[thepimster]

Hi All,

We are on vBulletin version 4.2.2 patchlevel 4 and have the following question:

We want to change our domain name and wonder if and how this is possible. as we have undoubtedly tens of thousands of internal links that won't work anymore after installing the software in a new hosting package and copying the database.

Is this a simple matter of "search and replace" in the database, or is it way more involved than that.

I am not very knowledgeable of vBulletin, but not afraid to try anything with guidance from you all.

So before I buy another hosting account and domain name, on a scale from 1-10, how difficult is it to accomplish to have the domain name changed and get the forum up and running again.

Thank you

Pim van Wijngaarden
Falls Church, VA

[Dave]

For URL's in posts, you can execute a SQL query in the database such as:

UPDATE post SET pagetext = REPLACE(pagetext, 'olddomain.com', 'newdomain.com') WHERE pagetext LIKE '%olddomain.com%'

And you also have to change the domain name in the settings of course.
It's extremely easy to do this, matter of minutes.

[thepimster]

Wow, thanks, that was quick!

So after copying the database to the new host, I open it up in phpmyadmin and run the query, alter the settings in the config file and that should pretty much be it?.

Hopefully you won't mind getting back to this once I start actually doing it and run into issues...

Grateful for your answer.

Pim

[Dave]

Yes, you change the settings in the AdminCP, the includes/config.php file and run that query (be sure to modify the domains in that query) and you should be fine. Sometimes you also have to make changes to the .htaccess file.

[thepimster]

Awesome, thanks, I'll keep you posted.

Have a good one

Pim

[friendlymela]

I think You can redirect your previous Url to new URL by sub domain

[thepimster]

As I am changing from dutchfleet.net to dutchfleet.nl, would this be the correct query:

REPLACE(pagetext, 'dutchfleet.net', 'dutchfleet.nl') WHERE pagetext LIKE '%dutchfleet.net%'

I guess not as I get all kinds of "Unexpected token" errors, so I guess there is somehting wrong with my syntax?

Thanks!

Pim

[RichieBoy67]

Well if you change your domain you are going to take a major traffic hit no matter what you do.

Why are you changing your domain? You will basically be starting over with google.

[webmastersun]

I would go with Dave's way or replace directly in the database file.

Besides you need to change some parts on files or htaccess files if you made changes before.

[thepimster]

I would go with Dave's way or replace directly in the database file.

That is what I am trying to do, but it doesn't work.

Dave suggested:

UPDATE post SET pagetext = REPLACE(pagetext, 'olddomain.com', 'newdomain.com') WHERE pagetext LIKE '%olddomain.com%'

So I did:

UPDATE post SET pagetext = REPLACE(pagetext, 'dutchfleet.net', 'dutchfleet.nl') WHERE pagetext LIKE '%dutchfleet.net%'

But I get:

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')' at line 1