In the first four parts of my start a forum series I covered picking a topic and buying a domain name, choosing a forum software, choosing a webhost and in my last update - creating the look of your forum. Today I’m going to cover more pre-launch steps that I use before showing off my new vBulletin forum.

If you’ve completed all of the steps above, the next thing to do is adjust a few of the vBulletin backend options. It is important to get all of the vBulletin options set up on the backend before you launch your forum because the default options don’t quite cut it.

The following list consists of settings I change and plugins I use for every vBulletin forum I launch:

- Disable Image verification in registration (Too hard for potential members to read and is unnecessary if using the No Spam! plugin)

- Set up a Welcome Private Message (Consists of a general welcome to the site and contains the site rules)

- Enable Verify Email Address in Registration (Helps to discourage spammers)

- Install No Spam! plugin - Stops all the spam bots in their tracks without relying on a users ability to decipher the somtimes complicated character sequences.

- Install Welcome Headers plugin - Does a great job of converting lurkers to new members and encourages new members to post

- Create a “Members only” section that is only accessible to members (duh) to help encourage registration and an introduction forum for new members to tell a little about themselves.

- Add a .htaccess file to the root directory of the website that contains the following info:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www\.|$) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

(If you don’t have a .htaccess file in your rood directory, simply open up notepad, put in the above info and save as “.htaccess”)

This code will help Google “canonicalize” a url (Google Engineer Matt Cutts on URL canonicalization). The code in the .htaccess file makes your website default to the www. version so that if someone types in yoursite.com it will redirect to www.yoursite.com.

I thought this would be the best time to cover the backend settings and plugins I use for every forum launch as the info is fresh in my mind because I just launched my newest forum:

WorldofWarcraftBoard.com

My backend changes and pre launch steps are a great starting point for your forum; however, I almost always use additional plugins and mods on forums that I launch. I customize each community to fit the needs of the members. For example, on the World of Warcraft forum I added a plugin that allows you to place [item] tags around an item from the game and if a user hovers over the item it will pop up and show detailed stats. It’s a nice way of adding more depth to the community. The goal behind a successful forum launch is to try and create the best possible environment for your community to flourish and by following the steps I outlined above and in previous posts your will be well on your way to success.