URL address structure causing broken links in forums

[rivperformance]

Hi,

Recently my users have reported links not working in forums of my board: https://rivperformance.editboard.com/
I have confirmed that many informative links, which have been working for years to direct users to different forum posts, are now broken, giving the 404 error page.

The problem seems to be caused by a change in the URL address structure. For example, here's a previously working link that's now broken:

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/care-maintenance-f8/faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions-t7290.htm

The current working link has been changed, accessed from this link below:

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t7290-faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions.htm

Note the removal of /care-maintenance-f8/ portion and moving t7290 from the end of the line to the middle.

I understand the shorter link is neater looking, but my board's membership has spent 15 years compiling useful information and organizing a menu of links for easy access. Now none of the links work - I'm talking about literally hundreds of broken links.

Rather than hunt down every broken link posted in my forms and manually editing them, what can be done to fix this problem from a higher level?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Aaron

[BlackScorpion]

Did you do any maintenance to your forum?, such as moved topics or deleted categories? This should not change by itself.

[rivperformance]

Good question, thanks for asking. I can confidently say that the structure of my forums has not changed in many years. I have not regularly moved, maintained, or pruned topics at my board in a very long time. The issue with broken links was first reported on October 2nd, 2022 at 11:23 pm EDT. I don't notice any differences in my forums structure.

Reference the example I cited above:
https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t7290-faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions.htm

If you click this link, you can see the location is within a category named "General Tech", and in the forum "Care & Maintenance". This structure has not changed in at least 10 years; the topic is 12 years old.

Now examine the old URL address structure:
https://rivperformance.editboard.com/care-maintenance-f8/faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions-t7290.htm

See how the "care-maintenance" is part of the link? That's because this was the way it was copied an pasted years ago from the same forum location. It's interesting how the category name was never part of the link text, but the forum name and topic name were included. Now, only the topic name (and t7290 identifier) are included in the text.

Within the above linked topic, there are several examples of linked addresses that use the same (old) URL structure, and these absolutely worked for many years with no problems. Now, suddenly, these links are all broken.

I don't presume to how or why the old links aren't working, only observing the URL address required to access topics in my forums has changed in structure, and the old address style is no longer linked to the original topics. This is consistent and repeatable for any pasted links I've found in any forum at my board.

In the below example, none of these links work, yet all of the topics still exist (keeping their original topic names, staying in their original category/forum locations). It seems to indicate there has been some automatic change with the URL address structure in my all of my forums.

[rivperformance]

Just want to add that the broken links situation and 404 error page happens consistently for me using Chrome, Firefox, Safari and iPhone browser interfaces.

Also, this changing link issue has been reported by another forum admin a couple months ago. In that case it was impacting linked images, but the same cause:
https://help.forumotion.com/t161586-clickable-images-links-are-being-changed

A forumotion administrator posted in that topic "The old redirects have been put back in place." I don't know exactly what this means, but it sounds like there was an attempt to "redirect" the old URL style so old links/images are no longer broken.

Can any admin comment on this?

[SLGray]

You will have to go through your forum and replace all the old links with the new ones.

[rivperformance]

Okay. Just curious, what is Forumotion's reasoning and benefit for changing to the new URL structure, and how do we know it won't change again in the future?

I'm asking because, due to this change outside my control, my forums are now dysfunctional. Now I need to do the work of searching hundreds of thousands of posts in my forums and correcting every single URL link, so they will work again.

If the URL structure should change again, all of it will have been done in vain. What kind of assurance can you give me that this won't be a regular thing? And again, what was the reason for changing it to begin with?

[Shek]

Hello...

You can see this topic: https://help.forumotion.com/t155239-forum-url-changed

In this topic, you can obtain informations about the reason of change of domains of platform.

See you.
Shek

[SLGray]

Hello...

You can see this topic: https://help.forumotion.com/t155239-forum-url-changed

In this topic, you can obtain informations about the reason of change of domains of platform.

See you.
Shek

That topic is not related to this issue.  The issue is the structure of the links have been changed, not the forum's address.

[The Godfather]

Hello @rivperformance

These link structures are very old structures that we haven't used for more than 10 / 12 years from memory.

- https://rivperformance.editboard.com/care-maintenance-f8/faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions-t7290.htm
- https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t7290-faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions.htm

The only good one is:

- https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t7290-faq-new-riviera-buyer-questions (no folders and no .htm in the URL).

It's possible that the redirects that were in place were removed or changed during a server-side change. In any case, only old links that have been added manually are affected. From an SEO point of view, it is not good to leave old links like that, it is better to replace them with the new structure which has not changed for more than 10 years as I explained.

Also, the current structure is fine and the current links will not change