A French community moved off a hosted forum provider

A film community's forum was running on a free hosted service, on somebody else's domain. I rebuilt it on their own site with the same structure, then later gave it its own database.

The objective

The forum lived on a hosted forum provider, at a separate address from the main site. They wanted it on their own domain, under their own control, and looking like part of their site.

The existing category structure was what their members knew, so the new forum had to reproduce it rather than start from a clean slate.

Everything was in French, the interface included, so the language setup had to be right from the start.

What I did

I set up phpBB on their own domain in French, with their admin accounts configured.

I rebuilt the category architecture to match the structure on the old hosted board.

I integrated the forum into their site so the two read as one property.

I handled a number of smaller details that came up during the work, beyond the original brief.

Later I moved the forum onto its own database, separate from the website, on storage they'd bought for it.

The result

The community moved onto their own domain and their own hosting, with the structure their members already knew.