Advice with choosing a host

deaff · #1 (**permalink**) 03-18-2008, 12:42 AM

Hey all, i am planning to make my first website, i was thinking of making a gaming forum. And hopefully make some good money from it. I am a complete noob with creating websites, html etc, so i would like a host where you can design the website right there. Could someone suggest a non-expensive host for this?

Also, is there a difference between .com or .org domain name?

Thanks.

ssmorgan · #2 (**permalink**) 03-18-2008, 01:48 AM

deaff,

I do not want to discourage you from starting a forum, but this issue comes up frequently here in Website Babble. It is generally recommended that you do not start a forum until you have a related website that gets quite a bit of traffic per day. The reason for this is that it is difficult to sustain an active forum with low traffic levels.

I am sure more members (especially Lisa, owner of WebsiteBabble.com, will share with you her personal experiences with forums) will chime in about this soon.

Regarding your question about the difference between .com and .org - anyone can sign up for a .com or a .org - I kind of think that it depends on your audience. .com is usually recommended because it is more intuitive. Although not necessarily true, a .org site is typically associated with an organization of some sort.

For the gaming market, I would go with a .com website.

Sherif

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 03-18-2008, 10:17 AM

Couldn't agree with Sherif more. Speaking as someone on her 4th forum (because the other 3 failed) you really have to work on the traffic first. I would wait until you have at least 1,000 visits per day (500 is the absolute minimum.)

Many hosts have website building tools (Powweb.com for example) but the issue with the hosted site builders is they can be somewhat limiting so I'd recommend learning something like Dreamweaver or CoffeeCup where you can have total control. And if you go that route, any host will do. HostGator.com is a good one.

And if you need help setting up your site initially you can always use a service like rentacoder.com and hire a coder to do the initial design. I use them quite a bit for Flash projects and other things too far over my head.
Then you can maintain your site going forward in your own software.

I also want to clarify that when you do decide to try a forum, you don't use software for that. A forum consists of a series of script files that you must configure and upload to your web server. So there is no such thing as using a web builder to setup a forum.

If you do go with HostGator, they come with a free bulletin board script called http://yabbforum.com/. Installing it is easy since HostGator uses the cpanel environment and you don't have to upload or configure anything to use the board. You just login to your Hostgator account, choose "Bulletin Board" and it is installed on your domain on the fly.

Since it's free, you're not going to get all the bells and whistles like you do with a forum like this. This is run by vbulletin and costs $160. You have to install it yourself.

deaff · #4 (**permalink**) 03-18-2008, 11:47 PM

Thanks for your feedback and information, guys. I guess its back to brainstorming for me then. What should a gaming website have other than a forum.. hmm...

lisa · #5 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008, 11:43 AM

That's actually a question you should ask yourself. What does your audience like and what information do they value? Get inside the mind of a gamer and provide information that they are not likely to find elsewhere.

nixwebo · #6 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008, 06:15 PM

You may look for a host that offers cpanel and fantistico deluxe. These server applications will offer many features that make setting up a forum a snap, since fantastico offers many one click install apps. PM me if you are interested in checking this out, I can set you up a temp account with my hosting service so you can look and see if this would suite your needs.

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