Swtiched from VB5 to VB4. Now I have 90k not found 404 errors

[CnfsdWhtGuy]

Just like the title says. I upgraded to VB5 as I was receiving email on the version I had that it had security flaws. I had already paid for the upgrade to 5 so I figured why not. Made the change and had performance issues, template complaints from users, and really a limited number of skins to choose from. Tried to make it work for about a month but I got nothing but negative feedback and a kept running into issues trying to get the site up to bar. I decided to drop back into VB4 again.

When I made the switch to 5 it updated all of our links to SEO friendly ones. When I switched back so did the links. Since then the number of not found 404 errors on google webmaster have sky rocketed. I contacted the support forum on Google webmaster and he recommended creating 301 redirects. He said there was a way to "script" it and save myself time. When investigating further he said it would be best to contact someone at Vbulletin. So here I am.

The site is www.killbillet.com. It is PHP based. It is currently on Version 4.2.3.

This is definitely outside of my expertise so I will likely have a few questions but I learn quickly. Thanks in advance and let me know if you need any more information.

[final kaoss]

Most likely Google will have to recrawl and reindex the site. In the meantime, create a sitemap and submit it to google via the webmaster tools.

[CnfsdWhtGuy]

Originally Posted by final kaoss

Most likely Google will have to recrawl and reindex the site. In the meantime, create a sitemap and submit it to google via the webmaster tools.

This was submitted about two weeks ago. Since the errors have just increased daily.

--------------- Added [DATE]1460474536[/DATE] at [TIME]1460474536[/TIME] ---------------

Lets start with this. A bunch of member profile pages are showing up as an error because the user page is listed as http://www.killbillet.com/member/62412-Cytel.

The actual user page link is below.

http://www.killbillet.com/member.php?62412-Cytel

How would I make this 301 redirect in bulk to remove this error?

Thanks for any input you can provide.

[Dave]

You could use the following rewrite rule for a 301 redirect for the URL's you posted:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^member/([0-9]+)-(.*)$ member.php?$1-$2 [R=301,L]

[CnfsdWhtGuy]

Dave,

I have a very limited understanding so I am sorry if I am asking stupid questions but would this coding apply to all member accounts then? And would this need to be uploaded to the member.php section of our site?

Thanks in advance.

[Dave]

It would apply to all the URL's which are constructed as the one in your previous post.
That piece of "code" is supposed to go in a .htaccess file in the root folder of your forum.

In case you don't know how to edit that file:
https://support.hostgator.com/articl...-htaccess-file
http://www.genesisclub.training/7532...ow-to-edit-it/

[Lynne]

Dave provided the .htaccess for your members pages, but unfortunately you will not be able to do any rewrites for forums or threads unless you type each one our specifically.

[CnfsdWhtGuy]

Ok so I drop this in the .htaccess file and any member page that is listed like the one above will have a 301 redirect and in theory should stop showing up as an error on google webmaster correct?

Lynne, So what you are saying is that this will only apply to members pages but every other section won't be fixed correct? so if I take the code above and apply it to the various sections (i.e. forumdisplay.php and showthread.php) it should do the same for those if they are formatted similarly correct? Can you have multiple rules like this in the htaccess file?

By the way this is super helpful. I have been dealing with this for a while and felt like I was getting nowhere. You guys are awesome.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by CnfsdWhtGuy

Ok so I drop this in the .htaccess file and any member page that is listed like the one above will have a 301 redirect and in theory should stop showing up as an error on google webmaster correct?

Lynne, So what you are saying is that this will only apply to members pages but every other section won't be fixed correct? so if I take the code above and apply it to the various sections (i.e. forumdisplay.php and showthread.php) it should do the same for those if they are formatted similarly correct? Can you have multiple rules like this in the htaccess file?

By the way this is super helpful. I have been dealing with this for a while and felt like I was getting nowhere. You guys are awesome.

Correct.

The other old SEO URL's may have a different structure which vBulletin may not support.
For example if the old SEO URL's only contain titles/names and no numbers (which are used to identify the section in vBulletin), there's no way for vBulletin to know what section is supposed to be displayed.

[Paul M]

There are no known security flaws in 4.2.3, so who exactly sent you this email?