Redirecting homepage to main forum page

[forum_maniac]

I had a question on how to redirect my home page www.example.com to www.example.com/forum since I do not have any content under www.example.com.

I came across this thread Help: How do I redirect my home page to my forum
that specifies how to use the .htaccess file. I assume this is a better way compared to using a <meta http-equiv="refresh"> statement in index.html, correct? Until now I was using the meta refresh statement, but I am now switching to the .htaccess method.

Could the wrong redirect method be the reason why "site:http://www.example.com/" returns only www.example.com even though I have been using vbSEO for several weeks?

Another question: When I use the .htaccess method, should I use an empty index.html file at www.example.com/index.html?

Your help is appreciated.

[Michael]

One question, why do you have vBulletin stored in the ./forums/ directory whilst you have no content in the root? By placing your forun URLs in lower subfolders this can effect how much "importance" Google assigns to thread and forum pages.

With regards to last question, yes, you would be best off removing the meta refresh statement from your ./index.html page

[forum_maniac]

One question, why do you have vBulletin stored in the ./forums/ directory whilst you have no content in the root? By placing your forun URLs in lower subfolders this can effect how much "importance" Google assigns to thread and forum pages.

Well using a "forum" directory is the default when installing vBulletin and if you are not very savy in the beginning you just leave the defaults... I may also use a portal in the future but for now I just have the forum.