Comments for Changing URLs

Changing URLs

2008-08-23T01:35:24Z

I started my blog back on MT 2.661 and I used the defualt UR mapping. So I've got the old "http://www.somedomain.com/archives/004622.html" style URLs. I want to change over to something more friendly when I go to MT 4.2 (I'm on 3.33 now), perhaps the 4.2 defaults (Depnding on what they are).

I've read the two pages on the topic here on mt.org, but I think I'm going to go with the suggestion from Chad Everett on the ProNet a while back to put it in the .htaccess file by creating an index template like this:

[MTEntries] redirect permanent [old style link] [new style link] [/MTEntries]

Anywho, I have two questions:

1.Should I do this before upgrading or after? Does it matter? 2.I think I can figure out how to create the [old style link] pretty easily using the permalink tag (I think), but how would I create the [new style link] without actually creating the new mappings?

Comment from DavidRemer on 2008-09-22

2008-09-22T14:13:45Z

salgoud,

I was in the same boat. What I did was to create an entirely new MT4.2 blog with default settings. Made adjustments to the default settings as appropriate.

I then switched to the old blog, and exported all the entries. Then switched to the new blog and imported those entries. This method inserted the imported entries into the new database structure, and of course, the new Archive mapping features. I preferred the yyyy,mm,dd,blog entry title format.

The default for MT 4.2 is to place archives in the blog's root directory. I would recommend creating an Archive subfolder to your blog root directory for the archives as it keeps the blog folder from getting cluttered.

It worked flawlessly for me.

I did then, create an htaccess file which, as you indicated, redirected traffic from the old archives folders to the new one while blocking access to the old archive folders listings.

Be sure to back up your old blog and database, just in case. Then export entries. Create new blog, adjust settings, and then import old blog entries. Voila!

Comment from Mike T on 2008-09-23

2008-09-23T15:15:21Z

You can have more than one mapping. I have a mapping in place that creates 1 set of individual archives with underscores and another that creates them with dashes. It'll make your rebuild process longer, but if you take advantage of 4.21's template module caching mechanism, you'll see a dramatic decrease in the amount of time a full rebuild takes.