VBulletin to BbPress Migration. How to Make an Effortless Switch

It might seem for you that migrating website or forum to the new platform is a devastating process. Maybe it used to be, long time ago, but not anymore. These days, converting forum is the most efficient way to give a new look and life to your website. Moreover, the procedure is not complicated at all. So if you want to move all the data from vBulletin to bbPress, then follow these steps and you will have an accomplished transfer in a few moments.

Before you do something important with your vBulletin website, save the information, so if anything went wrong, you can easily restore it. You can back up the database via SSH/Telnet, phpMyAdmin or anything else. Or use vBulletin automated backup. 

It is important to migrate your forum at time when the visiting rate is the lowest on your vBulletin site. Analyze the traffic on your website to find out when it is better.

Install your WordPress website, choose the proper hosting and domain for your new website. Set up the custom structure for permalinks. So when you transfer the links from vBulletin, they will be written according to WP structure.

In order to migrate your vBulletin website directly to bbPress forum, you should install it before making a switch, you have to install bbPress plugin.

For your transfer, you should have the FTP access details - your host name, username and password for both sites. You can clarify the information from your hosting providers.

Right in WordPress plugin repository, find CMS2CMS: Automated vBulletin to bbPress Migrator. Download the file to your computer.

Once you downloaded the plugin, go to your WP dashboard and upload the plugin.
As soon as you installed it, press the “activate” button and it will appear in your admin area.b

In order to go further with the conversion, sign up for CMS2CMS. Provide your email and password and that’s it.

Now you have to create the connection between your Wordpress website and source vBulletin. by following the steps below:
- Download the Bridge file.
- Extract it from an archive.
- Upload the bridge folder ‘cms2cms’ via FTP client dashboard (like FileZilla, etc.)  to the root directory of your vBulletin web page. Root directory is the top folder with the file index.php.
- Specify the URL of your vBulletin website
-  Verify the Connection

With this plugin, you not only can migrate the content, but there are also a few options which will be implemented to your migration. Check them up and select proper ones.

You have the opportunity to test service in action. With Demo Migration the limited amount of different types of content will be transferred to the target website for you to take a look how everything works.

If you have checked on Demo Migration and it looks okay for you, then start Full Forum Conversion. When the process starts you may close the browser window, as soon as the transfer is complete, you will receive an email notification.

Now when the forum content is transferred, take a look if everything is fine. Set up the theme for your bbPress forum and install all the necessary plugins.

Now you see, it is not complicated at all. Surely it requires some time and a bit of efforts but, you can make it. So don’t wait, download CMS2CMS: Automated vBulletin to bbPress Migrator right now and start the migration. Your new bbPress forum will be awesome.