301 redirects on same domain & page ranks

[CrazyEngineer]

I'm considering migrating our vBulletin platform to XenForo on the same domain. I've been told that as long as the domain is the same, the 301 redirect shouldn't affect PR.

A bit about my current setup: I'm using vB+vBSEO and looking to shift to XF framework. In the process, the URL structure will change and I'm bit worried that I'll lose my traffic. I'm aware that there will be initial drop in the traffic but it recovers within 2-3 weeks - which is 'okay' for us.

I'd appreciate if you could share your experiences and have tips for me to consider before migration from vB to XF.

Thank you for your time.

[g1smd]

The redirect will help maintain your traffic, and will force searchengines to index the new URLs.

[1script]

I'm bit worried that I'll lose my traffic

You'd have to weigh the benefits of switching to the new system against the risk of losing some traffic. Why are you switching? What benefits do you expect from XF that vB would not provide?
To me, it would have to be substantial because in such a big change the risk is not insignificant. Traffic drop may be temporary if the switch goes smooth but can still take some 60-90 days, could be pretty painful if it's your only site.

On the other hand, I've seen drastic URL structure changes spur googlebot (and other bots, too) activity that was somewhat lethargic before the switch. Could be beneficial for future traffic despite of the short term losses.

[CrazyEngineer]

Thank you for your quick response. I think short term traffic loss should be okay as it'd give us more focus to work on the site and the overall community will benefit from the new platform. I've been doing lot of research before I take the plunge and people have reported that user engagement has drastically improved after migration from vB => XF.

We've been running into problems quite often and vB upgrade process is quite troublesome. Every time we upgrade, we notice something that's broken (and often unnoticeable during test upgrades). Plus there are frequent updates and security patch releases which makes me focus more on 'administration' part than community building.

I've been evaluating the XF platform for over a month and it seems to be quite an excellent software. So losing out a percentage of traffic should be okay, if I start thinking about long term effects.

I'm looking to read more stories about intra-domain 301 redirects and its effect on organic traffic. Most of the stories however are about domain changes.

[Andem]

I have some experience in these type of redirects and the outcome was overall positive. Back in the early 2000s, we ran phpBB and in 2004 switched over to vBulletin on a subdomain forums.example.com as opposed to domain.com/forum where we were running phpBB. I created a php script to grab the importid from the new imported vB thread table and then 301'd it to the relevant vbulletin thread page. I did the same with all of the forums.

I haven't used XenForo yet, but I suspect their tables should also include imported thread ids and you should be able to pull this off pretty easily with a simple php script.

To this day, Google recognizes old links to phpBB pages and gives the new vB pages credit.