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How to install Pages or Blogs in a different folder than the forum?

David N.

By David N.
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David N. Veteran

David N.

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Posted

Right now all my Invision apps are installed inside a folder named "/forum/" (as it seems to be right here: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/)

However that means if I go to my blogs then the url becomes mydomainname.com/forums/blogs/

Is it possible to move the apps so that the blogs can be accessed directly from mydomainname.com? And so that I can use Pages to create for example a home page accessible from mydomainname.com ?

Sonya* Grand Master

Sonya*

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

Right now all my Invision apps are installed inside a folder named "/forum/"

Is there any reason for it? Why haven't you installed IPS on the root domain?

9 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

Is it possible to move the apps so that the blogs can be accessed directly from mydomainname.com?

No. Unless you move your whole installation in to the root domain.

9 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

And so that I can use Pages to create for example a home page accessible from mydomainname.com ?

This is also only possible if you have installed IPS in the root domain. 

Edited by Sonya*
David N. Veteran

David N.

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1 minute ago, Sonya* said:

Is there any reason for it? Why don't you have installed it on the root domain?

my old phpBB was installed in the /forum/ folder to not confuse with my wordpress blog which is in the root domain. Now that I have Invision I intend to use only Invision for both the blog and the forum. 

Apparently here on this site the forum is in one folder:

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/

And pages is in another: 

https://invisioncommunity.com/news/

Sonya* Grand Master

Sonya*

Posted
Posted

Every app in IPS has a folder that is appended to the installation URL. Except if the application is set as the default application. This one will omit the folder. 

If you would like to replace WordPress with Pages, do these steps:

  • Import your WordPress contents into Pages
  • Remove WordPress from the root domain
  • Move the entire IPS installation under the root domain
  • Set Pages as a default application

This would give you the following structure:

Homepage (with Pages) - https://example.com/
Forums - https://example.com/forums/
Blogs - https://example.com/blogs/

And so on.

 

opentype Grand Master

opentype

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

Is it possible to move the apps so that the blogs can be accessed directly from mydomainname.com? And so that I can use Pages to create for example a home page accessible from mydomainname.com ?

Yes, it is possible (by moving the entire installation to the root), but it is tricky. The little difference between /forum/ and /forums/ (as the default URL slug for the forums) means that either all your existing links and search engine results will break or you would have to customize the forum app URLs to keep the old links. Either way, this needs to be planned and tested carefully. 

David N. Veteran

David N.

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6 hours ago, opentype said:

The little difference between /forum/ and /forums/ (as the default URL slug for the forums) means that either all your existing links and search engine results will break or you would have to customize the forum app URLs to keep the old links. Either way, this needs to be planned and tested carefully.

The more I think about it the more the idea of customizing the forum app folder name sounds like a great idea, however would it present issues with future updates of the Invision Community software which would expect that folder to be named /forums/ and not /forum/ ? 
If you believe there are no issues, then would that be a service you could provide? If not, could you recommend someone who I could contact to help with this? 

Thanks!

Jim M Grand Master

Jim M

Posted
Posted

Customizing the root slugs for FURLs would not be advised. Not only is it not supported but would require manual manipulation of the core files which will present upgrade issues as you move forward with the software.

  • 2 weeks later...
David N. Veteran

David N.

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On 5/20/2022 at 3:50 PM, Jim M said:

Customizing the root slugs for FURLs would not be advised. Not only is it not supported but would require manual manipulation of the core files which will present upgrade issues as you move forward with the software.

When you say customizing the root slugs is not advised, is that also not advised to add a folder to the root slug? 

Invision is currently installed in a folder named /forum/ and Forums is the default app. A topic URL is currently domainname.com/forum/topic/how-to-cook-eggs/

Problem: Any page I create in Pages appears with /forum/ in the URL. For example if I create a page called "news" then the URL is domainname.com/forum/news

Solution:

  1. Move the Invision install to the root of my domain name,
  2. Keep Forums as the default app,
  3. Add /forum to the FURL of the Forums pages so that the URLS don't change (domainname.com/forum/topic/how-to-cook-eggs remains the same).
  4. Pages now appear at the root (domainname.com/news).

Would that work or is that considered customizing the root slugs for FURLs and not advisable?

Would have have any impact on SEO or future Invision updates? 

Can you think of a better solution for my problem?

Thanks!

opentype Grand Master

opentype

Posted
Posted (edited)

The question is: is there really a problem? Most users do not actively read full URLs and more and browsers even hide anything but the domain by default. I wouldn’t make significant changes to the URL structure unless you absolutely have to. Just “liking” a different structure better isn’t enough. It is indeed risky (in terms of SEO and potential technical problems) and you really have to know what you are doing. This includes things like being able to set up htaccess redirects and resolving potential conflicts that can occur because of conflicting link targets or multi-redirects. 

Edited by opentype
David N. Veteran

David N.

Posted
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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, opentype said:

The question is: is there really a problem?

I was hoping I could avoid having "forum" in the URL name that leads to parts of the website that are not the forum. I suppose that would also be better for SEO? For example for someone searching for "how to cook eggs tutorial" to have

goodcook.com/tutorial/how-to-cook-eggs

rather than having 

goodcook.com/forum/tutorial/how-to-cook-eggs

Edited by Jamynee
opentype Grand Master

opentype

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

I suppose that would also be better for SEO? For example for someone searching for "how to cook eggs tutorial" to have

goodcook.com/tutorial/how-to-cook-eggs

rather than having 

goodcook.com/forum/tutorial/how-to-cook-eggs

It shouldn’t be a problem. “forum” is just a different word for “community” in such a context. One additional URL slug shouldn’t hurt the search ranking. 

To be clear: The version without /forum/ would be preferred, but only if you start fresh with your website. Changing it on an already establish site might cause more harm good.  

David N. Veteran

David N.

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20 minutes ago, opentype said:

To be clear: The version without /forum/ would be preferred, but only if you start fresh with your website. Changing it on an already establish site might cause more harm good.  

The thing is, I JUST did the migration from phpBB to Invision and mistakenly installed Invision inside the existing /forum/ folder, not realizing that that meant that from now on my entire website will live inside the /forum/ folder. 🙄

Marc Grand Master

Marc

Posted
Posted

You can move that from the folder if you need to do so. You would simply do the following (after taking a full backup)

  1. Move all files/folders from the /forum/ folder, and put them in root
  2. Edit your conf_global.php file, and remove the /forum/

Once thats done (if you are doing so) let me know and I can update your URL on the license

David N. Veteran

David N.

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Just now, Marc Stridgen said:

You can move that from the folder if you need to do so. You would simply do the following (after taking a full backup)

  1. Move all files/folders from the /forum/ folder, and put them in root
  2. Edit your conf_global.php file, and remove the /forum/

Once thats done (if you are doing so) let me know and I can update your URL on the license

Thanks Marc, I appreciate it. Unfortunately my concern is that Google has re-indexed all the topics with the "/forum" folder for the past month, so if move them, they would no longer work. 

David N. Veteran

David N.

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Just now, Marc Stridgen said:

Ah I see. No problem, Jamynee. At least you know the option is there if needed

Yes totally, thank you. I suppose I'm going to follow @opentype's advice and leave it the way it is. 

Sonya* Grand Master

Sonya*

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Jamynee said:

Google has re-indexed all the topics with the "/forum" folder for the past month

Google is not so fast to re-index large forums in a month. What was your URL for a topic on phpBB? All your topics URL are redirected now from the old phpBB URLs. This will be "just" another redirection. Try to figure out how many URLs are not reindexed now by searching in Google:

site:https://www.example.com/forum/viewtopic vs. site:https://www.example.com/forum/topic

How many do you have for either search?

David N. Veteran

David N.

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1 minute ago, Sonya* said:

How many do you have for either search?

site:https://www.example.com/forum/viewtopic = 21,300

site:https://www.example.com/forum/topic = 43,600

Sonya* Grand Master

Sonya*

Posted
Posted

Now, if you move to the root, 21.300 will be re-indexed just once. 43,600 will be re-indexed another time. It's your decision.

Personally, I like clean URL structure. I would move even if it means, I am going to lose traffic (hopefully temporarily). But @opentype is correct that every change to the URL structure will have an impact.

If you follow this structure

3 hours ago, Jamynee said:
  • Move the Invision install to the root of my domain name,
  • Keep Forums as the default app,
  • Add /forum to the FURL of the Forums pages so that the URLs don't change (domainname.com/forum/topic/how-to-cook-eggs remains the same).
  • Pages now appear at the root (domainname.com/news).

As the last step add a .htaccess redirection rule, that will redirect all URLs containing /forum/* to /forums/* You will not have any broken links. But I would hire a technical person during moving and rewriting for assistance. 🙂

David N. Veteran

David N.

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1 minute ago, Sonya* said:

As the last step add a .htaccess redirection rule, that will redirect all URLs containing /forum/* to /forums/* You will not have any broken links. But I would hire a technical person during moving and rewriting for assistance. 🙂

Thank you Sonya, can you recommend a technical person who I could hire for such a service? 

David N. Veteran

David N.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

As the last step add a .htaccess redirection rule, that will redirect all URLs containing /forum/* to /forums/* You will not have any broken links.

Wait, I suppose that if I do that then there is no need to change the FURL at all?

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