I had a nice free advertising forum - hosted by forumotion. Traffic was increasing nicely, including search engine traffic. I was getting new members daily. Then, a few weeks ago, I got the below message when I tried to access my forum. Onlineguardian has banned " free-advertising.forum3.info " hosted on forumotion.com due to the violation of terms of services. The forum was moderated, so I don't think there was anyone against their TOS - it just seems strange that the forum was doing well and then got taken off the internet. I have contested their decision, but have heard nothing. Has this happened to anyone else at forumotion?
I have never tried them but maybe buying a domain and hosting would have been better if it was growing
It's better to go with paid hosting, in that way, you will even have backup of your site. Really sorry to hear that.
Well have you read the TOS? Perhaps you violated something that you wouldn't have expected to be in there. At any rate though, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. If you are ever serious about a website or forum, it's best to invest in your own domain and hosting. It's more "real" and more appealing to visitors. Maybe this was a sign that you should work towards that instead of the free alternative.
Regardless if you violated the terms of service or not, its their server and they will do what they want. Take this time to get yourself a real host and set up your own forum.
Read their TOS and see if you have violated any terms mentioned in their policy. If you feel that you haven't violated their TOS send them an email and see what they have to say. And yeah, like others said, it's good to run a forum on your own host. This way you'll have complete control and can take regular backups. SticKer
Thanks for the comments - you're all correct, I think I do need my own domain/hosting. Forumotion have been a good host though, it's just frustating that they haven't given me a reason why my forum was deleted.
Time to break down and give up $8 for domain.... May I recommend..... myforumiusetohavegotdeletedsoiboughtthisdomain.com What do you think?