Add a Forum to Blogspot/Blogger

• Add a forum to blogspot/Blogger

Sites and blog administrators (bloggers) usually want to try many features to their blogs to provide more functionalities to the visitors and make their blog better.

Among of these is to add a forum to their blog. This article is specially made for bloggers who use blogger (blogspot) blogs and want to add a forum to their blogspot/blogger blog. However, the techniques shown here may also be possible on other services.

Bloggers have many reasons that make them want to add a forum to their blogspot/blogger blog. One may want to add this as an additional feature and show that their blogs have many professional functions. Forums allow viewers and blog readers to interact with each other. Forums are usually better options than blogs for such interactions. Readers can make their own posts and share their opinions and ideas on forums.

Other people only want the pleasure to administrate a blog of their own. They want to moderate and create a community for themselves. Well, the reasons for which people want to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs are many.

This is why a decided to make a tutorial with the title “Add a forum to blogspot/blogger”. I will show you more than one technique to do this. You can share your opinion to say which one is better in comments. I`ll give the free methods first. Then, if there is a method that you need to pay or upgrade, I`ll notify you there.
However, I personally prefer free methods of doing things and, if you are using blogspot/blogger blogs to add a forum, I think you too would choose the free way.

Note:-
The forums that we are adding have only been created for this tutorial. So, they may not look great in the screens. However, after you modify and add more things using the options they provide, the forums will look like real and professional forums.

If you want see a screen properly, open it in a new tab and you will see it at its full size.

• Using Google Groups to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs (free)

The first method that I`ll show you is using Google Groups to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs. This is free and very easy to do.

Basically, I will use iframe to do this. I will combine the Google Groups forum with the blogspot/blogger blog using iframe.

As I said, using Google Groups to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs is very easy. It`s just like creating a blog.

So, first, you go to Google Groups to create a new forum.

Just type Google Groups on the google search engine. It should be the first result. You can also press on Google Groups here to go there directly.

Well, here is the page that appears.


Click on “Create a group” to start the process of adding a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs. Note that I will use this interface in the screenshots. The new interface should be quite similar.

Next, this page will appear.


You will need to insert the correct code to confirm the group.


You will be asked whether you want to invite your friends now. Well, that depends on you. I skipped this step to make things quick. You can do this later.

You will be directed to your Google Groups homepage which is as follows:


Well, this is your forum home page. You can modify it later and make more options. For now, you need to copy your forum URL as shown in the screenshot. This is the URL you will use in the iframe codes in order to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blog.

Now, create a new page on blogger. A static page is better. The screen shows you how to create a static page if you did not know.


And on that page, use this code:-

<iframe frameborder="0" height="900" src=" http://groups.google.com/group/pc-internet-zone" width="100%"></iframe>

Replace my forum URL with yours.

Well, that`s it. This was how you could add a forum to blogspot/blogger blog using Google Groups.

Check it Google Groups Forum integrated in blog


Google Groups also provides some codes that you can put on your site that displays a subscribe box that users can use to subscribe and go to your Google Groups page.

• Using Nabble to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs

Let`s now see how you can add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs using Nabble.

First, go to Nabble. Either type Nabble on google search engine (it should be the first result) or click on Nabble here to go.


Click on “Start a Free Forum” to proceed. Then fill in the required information and create the forum that you will integrate to blogspot/blogger.


You will be directed to the forum. The URL is that of your forum. Fist, you need to go to your email to confirm the link. Then continue and go to Options and choose Embedding Options. You will be redirected to a page which displays some codes. Do not close this page.

Now, go the Blogger and create a new static page. On that page, go to “Edit HTML” and paste the codes from Nabble there. Save and publish it. It should look like this.


Well, you have already added the Nabble forum to blogspot/blogger. Check it Nabble Forum integrated in blog

This is one way of adding a Nabble forum to blogspot/blogger. Some may not like the way it looks. If you think it is too small, I have some variation of adding the Nabble forum to blogspot/blogger for you.

The first one is to add (implement) the forum on a completely new blog. That is, it will only be called a blog because you used blogspot/blogger and it will actually be a forum. You can link to the link from your blog.

So, create a new blogspot/blogger blog on blogger. Choose a template at random (it will not be of any use – so don`t lose time to search for a professional one). Then go to Design and Edit HTML. Expand the template and search for <body>.

What you need to do is delete everything after the <body> until </body>. Do not delete these two. You then need to copy and paste the Nabble codes and paste it after <body> and before </body>.

It should look like:-
<body>Your Nabble Codes here</body>

When you publish, you will see only the forum from Nabble. That`s another method of adding a Nabble forum to blogspot/blogger blogs.

Now, you may think that it is not necessary. You could have only use the Nabble URL provided for the forum. But you should know that with this method, you will obtain your own Alexa rank, page rank and many data to the .blogspot forum (blog).

Here is a screen of adding a Nabble forum to a new blogspot/blogger blog:-


Check it here : Computer and Technology Forum

There is another way of adding a Nabble forum to your same blog (the blog that you are using) to blogspot/blogger. This time, you will make the blog appear on a static page of the site, but without the sidebar and others …

[I have used another template as I cannot do this method with my current template. I created a new blog especially for this. I used a regular template available at blogger and created a static page which will be for the forum]

Create a static page with the title your want and publish (without any data). Copy the URL of this static page.

Then, go to Design and choose “Edit HTML”. Expand the template. Search (use Ctrl+F) for either <div id="content-wrapper"> or <div class="columns fauxcolumns">. In this example, I have the second one (this is present in the template available at blogger that you can edit with the designer).

Just before this code, paste the following:-

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot; http://nabble-on-page.blogspot.com/p/forum-on-page.html&quot;'>
PASTE_CODE_FROM_NABBLE_HERE
</b:if>

Replace the URL in red with that of your static page and replace the black sentence with your Nabble code. Do not change the codes in blue.

Here is a screenshot:-



Save the template and search for and insert the following codes:-

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot; http://nabble-on-page.blogspot.com/p/forum-on-page.html &quot;'>
<style type='text/css'>
#content-wrapper {
display:none !important;
}
.columns, .fauxcolumns {
display:none !important;
}
</style>
</b:if>

These are the codes that remove the sidebar and others. Look at this screen:-


And now, look at this as proof that the forum is inserted on a static page with no sidebars:


(I made it smaller so that the whole page appears). Check it: Integrated Nabble Forum without sidebars

This completes this method of adding a Nabble forum to blogspot/blogger blogs. No sidebars appear in this method. Only the regular header and the forum are displayed.

However, as I said before, you should search for one of the two pieces of codes first. If there are not these 2 codes, it would be almost impossible, unless you understand the codes well and can the necessary changes.

These were all the methods that I could come across to use Nabble to add a forum to blogspot/blogger.


Vanilla Forums is another alternative to add a forum to blogspot/blogger blogs. However, the free version is very limited and you need to pay to obtain the full features.

You may also want to add chatbox like Talkki,Meebome, Cbox, ….



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