Moving board to new domain - old links will work?

[Danny Wyatt]

I had to move my board to a different domain once, but I didn't check this:
How to make the old links still work?

Let's say this is my current domain where my board is installed: www.mydomain.com/forum
And I have a topic here: www.mydomain.com/forum/topic1

When I move to another domain, in this case: www.forum.mynewdomain.com
How can I make it so when someone types www.mydomain.com/forum/topic1 they are redirected to www.forum.mynewdomain.com/topic1

Is this possible?
The reason I'm asking is because I currently have hosting and domain that uses SSL, but I'm 100% sure I will eventually move this board to a new domain that makes more sense, but right now I can't afford 2 hostings, so I will use the current domain to keep growing the community (this one has SSL already) and when I can afford the final domain, I will transfer it, but I wanted to make sure that links won't be broken.

[warmweer]

Let's say this is my current domain where my board is installed: www.mydomain.com/forum
And I have a topic here: www.mydomain.com/forum/topic1

When I move to another domain, in this case: www.forum.mynewdomain.com
How can I make it so when someone types www.mydomain.com/forum/topic1 they are redirected to www.forum.mynewdomain.com/topic1

Is this possible?

Yep, not all that difficult but if it's your first time it does look a bit daunting.

There's some good info in Transferring Forum

[Danny Wyatt]

Thank you for sharing the link... which funny enough, is my own topic haha
I will definitely keep this as a reference when I do that.
Apparently, when I made that first change, according to this reply, I didn't change host, so I didn't need a new database.

Now if I go from www.mydomain.com to www.acompletelydifferentdomain.com, I will need a new database, right?
Meaning, I would create the new database for the new domain and then import the old one into it?
Also, I would still need to edit the cookie domain as mentioned here, right?

[Mick]

Knowledge Base - Transferring Your Board to a New Host or Domain should help with the moving, Knowledge Base - Fixing incorrect cookie settings should help with the cookies which is covered in the first one as well.

[Danny Wyatt]

Thank you again for the extra info.
I believe I followed this instructions when I did the first move.
Now my issue is not so much related to the new board.
My issue is more related to the old links.

So if I have a topic www.myolddomain.com/topic1 and someone saves that as a browser bookmark, when I move to the new domain, if they use that URL, it will show a broken link, because there's nothing there.
So is there a way that I can make all www.myolddomain.com links redirect to www.thenewdomain.com?
So this www.myolddomain.com/topic1 will redirect the person to www.thenewdomain.com/topic1
I would assume that maybe that can be accomplished by editing the .htaccess file, maybe?
I'm not that familiar (if at all) with what can be done with the .htaccess file

[stevemaury]

No, it will take SQL. I have a query for that. Give me a few hours.

Here you go:

Code: Select all

update phpbb_posts set post_text = replace(post_text, 'www.old_domain.com', 'www.new_domain.com');
update phpbb_posts set post_text = replace(post_text, 'www.old_domain.com', 'www.new_domain.com');

If your table prefix is not phpbb_, change accordingly. Backup the posts table before running this query.

[P_I]

No, it will take SQL. I have a query for that. Give me a few hours.

How about a time machine to viewtopic.php?t=1990675. Does the SQL match?

[janus_zonstraal]

So is there a way that I can make all www.myolddomain.com links redirect to www.thenewdomain.com?

Yes make a redirect in your old domain, you can do that in the htacces or in a html page.

The solution from stevemaury is only to repair the links in your board, not to redirect from the old to the new domain.
Also you have to tell Google that you move the board.

[Danny Wyatt]

Thank you all for your help and feedback.
I will save this info for when I'm ready to transfer everything.