If I switch to a custom domain, is it easy to set up a redirect?

[CaptainJ]

I’m coming to the end of my trial and I think I’d like to start out on a Basic Plan but potentially upgrade to a Standard Plan later, partly for the custom domain. It looks like I’d have to buy the domain separately and connect it to my Discourse forum somehow, which I could probably figure out, but then I’m wondering if I’d be able to redirect the old domain to the new one?

I found instructions for how to do this if migrating from other forum software to Discourse, but it looks very complicated and possibly not even what I’m looking for.

[Moin]

I think this is the guide you are looking for

Configure your domain name for hosted Discourse

So you’ve selected a hosted Discourse plan. Lucky you! The very first step is to point your domain name forum.example.com to our hosting. You will need to edit the DNS records for your domain name, example.com. In most cases, the DNS is controlled from the same place where you originally purchased the example.com domain from. Log into your name registrar and find your DNS control panel. In the DNS control panel, CNAME forum to point at <something>.hosted-by-discourse.com. The exa…

My favorite part:

@Discourse

Wait for the change to process and we’ll take care of the rest.

[CaptainJ]

Thanks! Do you think “we’ll take care of the rest” includes setting up a redirect from the old example.discourse.group to forum.example.com then?

(It’s not obvious to me, particularly as that guide seems to be talking about customers starting fresh on the Standard Plan or above, rather than moving from a .discourse.group domain on the Basic Plan to a custom domain on a Standard Plan while trying to keep the domain pointing to the same forum.)

[supermathie (Michael Brown)]

@CaptainJ

Thanks! Do you think “we’ll take care of the rest” includes setting up a redirect from the old example.discourse.group to forum.example.com then?

We do support this, though I can’t recall if it’s automatic or if you need to email us (team@discourse.org, or PM @team here) to set it up.

[marvi]

@supermathie

ough I can’t recall if it’s automatic or if you need to em

We had a similar but slightly different question, where we have actually had our community running for over a year without taking advantage of the custom domain that comes with our business plan. We are interested in taking advantage now, however, it is important to us to make sure that:

1 - Prior interlinking between different topics in the forum would still work. We have many posts that link to other topics.
2 - The links that we have previously sent over email would still work.

Really scared to make any changes that could potentially break the above. Would the redirects be set up by Discourse to make it a smooth transition? Would we need to do anything else in addition to selecting the domain and emailing? Or could there be potential issues?

[supermathie (Michael Brown)]

@marvi

Would the redirects be set up by Discourse to make it a smooth transition?

Yes, we have this process nailed down pretty well to make it as transparent as possible.