After migrating from phpBB to Discourse, mstm reports that Google indexing collapsed due to broken permalinks—specifically, old URLs like viewtopic.php?t=1267 aren’t redirecting. The permalinks generated by the conversion script only work for categories, not individual topics. pfaffman confirms that permalinks must be manually created via /admin/customize/permalinks and suggests using a script to generate them from existing TopicCustomField data, which retains old phpBB topic mappings. mstm notes the scale (2,500+ topics) is daunting and lacks the technical skill to implement the fix. pfaffman provides an example script from another importer that could be adapted for phpBB links. codinghorror emphasizes that redirects are critical during migration and suggests updating Discourse documentation to highlight this. The issue remains unresolved, but the technical path forward is outlined for advanced users or developers.
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 It’s not redirected.
Thanks
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.
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
/(viewforum.php\?)(?:.*&)?(f=\d+).*/\1\2
The ones I found after conversion are these but only works for the categories.
No. Not the permalink site settings. The permalinks at the URL in the my last message.
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 …
You can see that the mapping from the old to the new is available with
./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.
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.
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