Why is bbPress the best forum software out there? For our forums, we wanted a message board that was free, reliable, lightweight and easy to customize. There are many forum software available online – some free, some paid, but here are the reasons I chose bbPress…
Why Install bbPress Forums?
Here are a few reasons why?
1. Simple, Light, and Blends
The first thing that strikes you when you get a bbPress forum is its simple clean crisp look, fast loading speed and the ease with which it can blend with your site structure. There is no unnecessary flab to increase the server load and its easy to customize to match your web design.
2. Pretty permalinks URLs
the permalink slug gets all the title keywords into the URL, which is great for search engine optimization and will give you that extra edge for higher search engine rankings.
E.g. Most forums will give you URLs like http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=23238
But bbpress will give you http://forums.yourblog.com/new-post
3. Just Like WordPress
If you run a WordPress blog, then you will feel the same experience when installing, and upgrading bbPress. The dashboard has a similar feel to WordPress. In fact, a major bonus is you can integrate it with WordPress easily with a plugin.
4. Its Free, Open Source
Hey! its free, it costs nothing to check it out. Any tool developed by community effort will get better with time and open source is the way to go.
5. Free Themes and plugins
There is an amazing array of plugins to expand the functionality of your forums, and one-click themes will change the forum design in seconds. There are plugins for most features missing in the core bbpress installation.
6. Lots of Feeds
Regular readers like feeds for everything – be it the front page topics, individual topic discussions or new comments in general. bbPress has so many feeds for every possible need, that you may need to think which feeds to downplay.
7. Akismet Spam Control
It is difficult to control spam on message boards and many forums close down because more time is spent moderating spammers than posting content. But Akismet is a powerful antispam solution which is well integrated into bbPress and helps to keep spammers away. In fact, it can automatically mark spammers as Bozos, whose posts will be visible only to themselves.
8. Integrated Gravatars
We all like avatars on forums. But if hosting avatars and moderating them is bothering you, relax – the amazing integrated Gravatars takes care of all avatar management for you, without any extra hosting needs while adding to better profiles.
9. Tag Navigation
Tags is the new way to navigate any site and bbPress gives you tag navigation wherever you want it. Add tags to each topic and define a new way for readers to browse your forums, while search engines find new ways to index your topics.
10. Brand Automattic
WordPress is powered by the Automattic brand, and the same guys created bbPress, so you can expect a quality product that will promise to get better with each version.
11. Get bbPress Forums Plugin
Now download bbPress WordPress plugin and integrate bbPress with WordPress in one click. Its the fastest way to add a forum to your blog and grow your community. Its as well SEO optimized as WordPress and you just need to moderate the user-generated content properly.
The future of bbPress is bright. Its not right to compare the functionality with WordPress, which is far more advanced. But bbPress is getting better with each new version, and the latest release has added some great new features. If you are a WordPress blogger looking to expand your network for more interaction with your readers and develop user-generated content, it is easy to start with and customize with the same WordPress feel, and its a great forum tool (I just told you 10 reasons why!) and we use it too. Get bbPress.
If you are looking for some other free forum solutions, some big message boards, and bulletin boards use vBulletin, phpBB or Simple Machine Forum.