forum url's changed from index.php?variable to index.php/variable.html

[xativa]

Hey guys :)

i recently moved a forum to a new server but for some reason the lo-fi pages (invision board) went from

domain.com/index.php?variable

to

domain.com/index.php/varaible.html

the board is being hit by googlebot, should i pursue the error and get it back to index.php?variable or just let googlebot index all the new stuff? bearing in mind many threads on this forum rank in top #5 out of 20mil+ serps

[seomike]

If google has cached the old urls just use mod rewrite to 301 to the new static urls

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /index\.php.*
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ([^&]+)
RewriteRule ^index.php$ /index.php/%1.html [R=301,L]

[I, Brian]

I should presume there is a setting in IPB 2 to allow/disallow static URLs?

Also - if you allow Google to index your new URLs, not old, then there's a good chance of losing existing rankings until all the new URLs have been indexed and processed. Google ranks URLs, not pages.

[xativa]

i've searched everywhere for some settings about static urls but can't find it, ipb support regulars couldn't pinpoint where to look and am waiting for ipb official support to have a look.
But it's been this way for a good 10 days without me noticing the difference, by now the new urls will have been crawled, infact just looking quickly they have been crawled and are in the index.


RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /index\.php.*
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ([^&]+)
RewriteRule ^index.php$ /index.php/%1.html [R=301,L]

i don't think i can redirect them like that because it's only the lo-fi pages that are affected, the rest of the board still runs static urls. (all parsed through index.php)
I'm starting to think i'd better just leave the static urls and let google do it's work, seeing as most will be cached by now. Would you agree it'd be best to leave it now and not revert back to dynamic urls?

[seomike]

You'll have to make a RewriteRule and RewriteCond per query string variation.

Even in a big forum with lots of options you shouldn't have to do them all. Just enough to allow the spiders to gooble up the thread posts.

If you post the old and new urls I can help you out.