Hello People, I just want to say first that i am totally new to this. I want to make websites, have some good ideas for forums, but i dont know how to make a forum. I just bought vb license, and i wil have someone install, and do the whole shebang for me. But i would like to ask: [1] IS there any way to get a forum for free? What are they? I know there is, but move one to the next question. [2] What are the advantages disadvantgaes? Does google go inside the other forums. For example, i know for vb bulletin, there are some posts that come up in google. How about other forum programs? [3]Very important question: If i get free forum, just for starters, and then i want to upgrade once my site/traffic picks up, can i just transfer all the posts? Or do i loose all the posts? Also, will all the users still be registered. Thank you for everything. +Rep points(green ones) for ANYONE who helps.
I am not sure if I understand what you mean by 'free forums' but here goes: If you're talking about freely hosted forums then yes you can get a freely hosted forum (mostly phpBB and in some cases, IPB) but that will be ad supported..meaning that your host will serve their ads on it. Advantages/Disadvantages of what? Crawl will depend on your SEO efforts. Comparitively, vbulletin posts (particularly the ones in archive/) rank fairly well in Google. If the free forum is remotely hosted (the one I mentioned earlier) then there is a slim chance that they will allow you to take database backups for free. If you're talking about free bulletin board software hosted on your own server then yes, all standards BBS provide converters.
If you need some help installing your vbulletin just hook me up, I will install any mods with for you to.
Man, i am having so much difficulty. Im going to rip my hair out. Ok. I will make myself clear. I will get my own domain. M&msareok.com . I dont want to buy VB license now. I want a free forum. If i get a free forum now, can i upgrade to VB later on? You mean for me to transfer right? They wont give me the database. I checked http://invisionfree.com/index.php?p=faq#t3 and they said no. Database is not available for download. SO can you tell me where can i get a free forum to put on my own domain please, and later on i get the database, and switch it to vb? Thanks.
There a lot of different forum softwares, the most popular ones are: vBulletin - license costs 160 dollars per domain Invision Power Board - License costs 150 dollars per domain phpBB - Free, very popular. Not very secure SMF - Free To run a forum you need to install the software in your hosting account, invisionfree.com provides a service where they store all the files and set up the forum, but in their own servers. They don't charge for that but they put ads in your forum. It's not a recommended option, you will not have full control of your site, you can't even get the database. So you need to host the forum's software files in your own web space, for that you need to buy hosting from someone, and then setup the forum there. Once you have your hosting account you have to decide what software you want to use, if you want to start with a free one consider phpBB. You'll later be able to move your forums to any other forum software you want as most of them include the exporting tools. Best of luck!
^ I don't mean to correct you in a rude way, vbulletin is $85 in the US and $100 in the EU (Tax and stuff). Anyway, Yes, if you use PHPBB and then would like to switch to vBulletin in the near future you can use a little tool/script called ImPeX or something like that (provided/coded by jelsoft) it transfers the SQL data into vbulletin and makes it all good and posts/users etc included, I have never used it before but I would recommend you getting someone good with MYSQL and stuff like that to do it as if done wrong it somehow can mess up your SQL (always backup your files before doing anything)... Regards
If you want to start out with a free forum software then I'd recommend SMF. You can easily import all of your databases to vbulletin later on. Vbulletin can be expensive, but it may be worth it for you in the long run! Vbulletin Owned License is $160 (You only have to pay it one time!) Vbulletin Leased License is $85 (You pay $85 every year if you don't get the owned license) For more special options and custom prices: http://www.vbulletin.com/order/
If I was you I would just start with the forum software you want to end up with. Whats the point in changing later its going to be a TOTAL MESS. Especially if you add mods down the line (which everyone almost does) You will have to find those same mods on the new forum software. Just pick one free or paid and stay with it lol. I recommend vb though especially because no offence you sound like you have no idea what your doing lol. The support is great at vb so thats why I would recommend it to you.
Some forums can have their passwords imported into vBulletin and some don't. It depends on how they store them. You may want to verify that whatever forum you choose now will import passwords. For an idea of what's involved, check here in the manual: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/impex There is a support forum specifically for help with vBulletin's ImpEx program. Once you get it down to a choice of two or three, try searching this forum to find out what issues people have had with the import. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=92 I can tell you that I did two imports from phpbb to vbulletin and both went smooth. I did do practice imports ahead of time and found out small things I needed to do in advance like how to handle the accounts with the same name so I could merge the two together, and how to handle total post counts.
In the first post you said that you just bought a vb license, and in your 3th post you say that you don't want to buy it now? Like said before, you can get completly free forums. But those are without domain names and if you want to upgrade later on you have to start all over again. So get some good hosting and a good domain name and install SMF (or phpBB, MyBB,...). If you want to change to vBulletin later on, then it's still possible without losing all your posts, members and topics.