# Help with permalinks after forum migration
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616
**Category:** Migration
**Created:** [January 12, 2022, 9:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616 "2022-01-12T09:01:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mstm](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mstm)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 9:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/1 "2022-01-12T09:01:53Z")
Hi, after the conversion from phpBB Google indexing has collapsed and even after months has never recovered.
I believe the problem is due to the many 404 mistakes due to the permalinks not working.
They are the predefined ones generated by the conversion script.
How can I correct them?
For example [https://www.mysite.com/viewtopic.php?t=1267](https://www.mysite.com/viewtopic.php?t=1267) It’s not redirected.
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/2 "2022-01-12T16:29:20Z")
Do the permalinks exist if you look at `/admin/customize/permalinks`?
What do they look like?
If not, you’ll need to get a script to generate them.
---
### Author:  [@mstm](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mstm)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/3 "2022-01-12T18:39:36Z")
Thanks for your help @pfaffman, yes I have what you see in the previous image.
For the categories I used this and it works perfectly
```plaintext
/(viewforum.php\?)(?:.*&)?(f=\d+).*/\1\2
```
The ones I found after conversion are these but only works for the categories.
>
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/4 "2022-01-12T18:41:18Z")
No. Not the permalink site settings. The permalinks at the URL in the my last message.
---
### Author:  [@mstm](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mstm)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/5 "2022-01-12T18:48:29Z")
There are permalinks for the categories and now I understand what you mean.
During conversion the permalinks for discussions were not created.
Ok, there are more than 2500 discussions … for now I give up …
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/6 "2022-01-12T18:51:12Z")
You can see that the mapping from the old to the new is available with
```plaintext
./launcher enter app
rails c
TopicCustomField.all
```
So then you would run a script that for each of those values a permalink gets created. It’s hard to explain, but it’s possible.
---
### Author:  [@mstm](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mstm)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 7:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/7 "2022-01-12T19:11:10Z")
You’re right there are all the data of the old phpBB discussions.
Thanks anyway of the help, unfortunately I don’t know how to use them.
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/8 "2022-01-12T19:26:41Z")
This is an example from another importer. You might be able to adjust it to create the permalinks on your server.
>
You’d change the `Permalink.create` line to match the links from phpBB
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-with-permalinks-after-forum-migration/214616/9 "2022-01-14T18:53:28Z")
It is _critical_ to get redirects in place for old content as part of a migration! I hope you can get this resolved, but maybe we need to update our documentation on migration @tshenry @dax to make this point?