It’s not an easy task to build an active and devoted community around a website. But once you’ve done it, your audience can find soulmates, while you become a successful forum board owner. This world constantly changes and the web-world especially. Sooner or later you start seeking for improvements, and the conclusion is – it’s high time to move from the existing forum board to the new one.
Keep reading, and you will find out how to switch forum without losing the audience and all the discussions they created. But first, let’s dwell on the forum board itself: what it’s about and what points to consider before the migration.
Actually, a forum board is a web space created for discussion running. What for? The discussion board is an effective way to attract more visitors to your website. Also, the existence of a forum enables you to get all the necessary information on how to improve your product or service. By the way, do you know that about 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation? 😳
In a nutshell, what are the benefits of having a discussion board standing alone or being integrated into your website?
- great way to interact with customers or simply like-minded people;
- perfect place for a knowledge base;
- excellent space for a round-up of friends.
It seems like a successful website, no matter what it’s about, has to have a forum board up and running. And when it comes to switching forum to another platform, even the minor things matter.
Switch forum – Ready?
What is the key component in any discussion board? It’s a community! Before moving your forum board to another platform, first of all, let your audience know about your decision. Doing this way you demonstrate that you do care and give your readers an opportunity to finish all the uncompleted issues they had on your forum.
Secondly, many users don’t know what forum transfer is all about. Explain to them that nothing will be lost and the migration will make the forum just prettier and more functional.
One of the most vital things during the forum switch is to minimize traffic loss. To do this smoothly and accurately, you will have to make sure that 301 redirects are set up correctly. Forum categories, comments and discussions are the most critical content to implement redirects for. Thus, you let the search engines know that you moved and allow the readers to find the information they are looking for with no error messages on their screens.
There’s no one-suits-all solution for setting up 301 redirects because it depends on the platform you are moving from. But if you are going to switch forum using an automated service, the redirects from old pages to the new ones will be arranged as a matter of course.
Switch forum – Steady. 
When you got ready and informed your users about forum migration, it’s time to choose the new home for your discussion board. Actually, it’s not an easy task to define the ideal forum board to move to, but there are some criteria to mind.
- is it free or paid forum software;
- how simple it’s while installation;
- whether the back-end is comprehensive and understandable for you;
- what it takes to get updated;
- is it secure enough.
Running the discussion board is one of those tricky ways to attract more visitors to your website. It’s a tool for new ideas generation, and of course, this is the tool that will help you to get extra profit. That’s why choosing a suitable discussion platform is of such importance for any business.
Switch forum – Go! 
Manual forum switch is not the best idea, indeed. Just imagine how many nights you will have to spend awaken to move all topics, categories, users and replies. And once something goes wrong, all your web property will be found nowhere. Brrr…scary picture 😯😯😯
That’s why an automated way to switch forum is a life-saver. Here’s how the fastest migration of a discussion board looks like:
1. Create an account within aisite, automated forum and website migration service. You can use Facebook or Google profile to sign in.
2. Choose your Existing forum board, provide its URL address and establish the connection to the website.
3. Select the platform you want to switch forum to, indicate the URL of this website and connect to it. If you haven’t created a new website, try migration to the test site. It will show you how the migrated forum will look like on the new platform.
4. Run Free Demo migration. Unlike other migration tools, aisite gives an opportunity to test forum switch for free and make sure that the result of the upcoming transfer is satisfying. On this step, you can also map the content, i.e. to choose what content types have to be migrated and where.
5. Check demo migration result and set up the final forum migration. Have worries that something might go wrong? aisite service offers you migration insurance which ensures the smooth forum switch and prevents you fro additional money wasting.
Here you are! You’ve successfully switched forum board! Was this tutorial helpful? Feel free to leave the feedback in a comment section below.
Now, when you are fully armed with the information to switch forum from one platform to another, it’s time to act! Set up the migration right now and just in a few clicks, all the data from your current discussion board will be safely transferred to the new one. aisite does care about your web project so be sure that the migration will be fully automated, fast and secure!
