Switching CMS and want to redirect links

[trumpfinc]

Hi guys,

I have a site that I run which has been around for a little while. It is actually in phpnuke, it also has a phpbb forum.. The site is so customized that I need to move it to something newer. So I am moving it to Joomla. I created a new domain just to get the joomla site created so I can move it to the main domain.

My question is this. How should I go about switching from phpnuke to joomla without losing the links that are going to my site. Also, where can I find the links that are pointing to my site?

Thanks for looking.

[Gijsbert]

To find links that are pointing to your site: OpensiteExplorer

Will the pages be the same? With other words; is the domain the only thing that will be changed? Check this post about moving a website to another domain and this one. With the correct redirect and some setup in Google Webmaster Tool you can do this without loosing links.

Best is to ask all websites to change the url to the new one...

[BlueprintMarketing]

I would use http://www.cms2cms.com/

but you can 301  redirect your existing links to the appropriate new page made by your's Joomla! based CMS.

You will want to do this in order to keep your back links that are currently pointing to those pages.

If you keep your links identical you will not have this issue however I Imagine you probably want to do a better job with your links if you're changing your site around.

simply take your current links HET P:/example.com/about/ 301 redirect to http://newexample.com/about/us/

or keeping the same domain example.com/about/ 301 redirect to example.com/about-us/

you will not have to worry about finding your back links if you properly 301 redirect your entire website to its corresponding new page on Joomla!.

However you will want to check out your back links profile if you are going to miss some of the 301's

I would recommend using open site Explorer as was mentioned along with ahrefs & majesticSEO

to make sure you have found all the back links pointing to your site and that they're still pointing to your new site once it's made.

My best advice is to not 301 redirect everything to your homepage it will hurt you and the SERPS

http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/ahrefs-vs-majestic-seo-vs-open-site-explorer-which-seo-link-analysis

above is a link going over the different back link profiling tools.

If your site is under 500 pages I would think it would be smart to use screaming frog spider SEO

this will allow you to profile your entire website and figure out exactly which pages you want to redirect and the best method to do that.

As far as the best method it depends a lot on your web host and the type of Web server you're using. I would strongly recommend using a server-side redirect over another method because it will speed up your site.

I hope this is helpful to you,

Thomas

[jesse-landry]

If you don't mind I'd like to do a brief thread-hijack:

Why Joomla?

I'm looking for a CMS (might end up designing with bootstrap if I can't find one in the end but really don't want to fiddle with the trial and error of that) but am having trouble. Wordpress I can't get installed on our servers.. (waiting on our engineer who's out) and Joomla seems to suck. But I'm not sure if that's accurate as everyone else seems to love it.

My problem is I registered for a demo Joomla account and there are 3 templates available that all look the exact same and I can't figure out how to completely modify/revamp them. Is this just because it's the demo? Am I missing something? Do you have any examples/reasons why you're moving to Joomla?

Sorry again for the hijack I just saw an opportunity to get some feedback/insight.

I've built a mockup in Balsamiq and I really wish I could get it translated to HTML/CSS somehow but alas I'm stuck.

Thanks!

[BlueprintMarketing]

I want hundred percent agree with the Joomla!  question. I would use WordPress is a far better content management system. Including the ability to have a manage WordPress hosting provider take care of many of the issues that you would pay a developer or SEO  to take care of

ZippyKid, WP Engine, Web Synthesis, Pagely, press labs, and now flywheel.All offer superior hosting platforms than anything I know that is a strictly Joomla! based host.Joomla!Is also known for being notoriously bad for search engine optimization in comparison to WordPress.There is nothing that I can think of that WordPress could not accomplish that Joomla could when it comes down to hosting if you do not feel comfortable using a managed WordPress host I would definitely put your site on a manager listing platform regardless I use firehose is the default for anything that's not built in WordPressHowever 99% of everything I do has to do with WordPress and that's for a reason the site architecture is almost perfect Google even agrees look at Matt cuts website you'll see it is built on WordPress you have the ability to create content all the time very quickly and it is a fantastic CMS There is literally 20 times the amount of plug-ins available and amount of outstanding developers working on word press in comparison to Joomla you can also find information much more easily I would use agenesis-based team and make sure it's Genesis 2.0 using HTML 5 That's just my two cents however I have investigated all the content management systems and honestly WordPress is in my opinion the very bestThomas

[trumpfinc]

Thanks for your reply Bereijk.

[trumpfinc]

Thanks for your reply Thomas. I appreciate your well thought out answer.

[trumpfinc]

Hi Jesse,

Honestly I wanted to use wordpress just because it is so easy to manage etc. The programmer I work with suggested Joomla. The reason was that I have so many customized things, it would be easier to acheive with extensions rather than the wordpress CMS. I wish I knew more but I can tell you that my site has a lot of modules that are custom and I haven't really seen other sites with the same mods.

[trumpfinc]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the answer. I would have LOVED to have had the site built on wordpress. I have used it a ton in the past and quite honestly I am new to Joomla.

I took the programmers word, I have worked with him for some years now. He said that there are things on my current site that really couldn't be done in wordpress without making changes to the core system....

Hopefully this will work out, if not I would not hesitate to move to wordpress.

[BlueprintMarketing]

I have a friend that is on the next level when it comes to WordPress if you can do it on Jooma you can do with WP without modifying the core there each PHP so really check with this guy before moving to something that you don't want to.

This guy made a version Genesis 2.0 Frist

http://www.gregreindel.com/wordpress-hosting-zippykid-giving-it-a-try/

He Helped pioneer the update of Genesis HTML5 He can do way more then I thought could be done with  WP & NOT changing WP core that's I big deal. Here is more on this work with  Copy blogger http://www.gregreindel.com/genesis-html5-child-starter-theme/It's free to ask I would before I made a site on Joomla!  I hope this helps,Thomas

[trumpfinc]

Thank you Thomas! I will take a look.