Hi all.

I've been a lurker on WebHostingTalk for a long time now, and have always enjoyed reading the forums. After all, this site found me a great host (Tera-Byte), and the advice I find here is always spot-on.

---Sorry in advance for the long-winded explanations of events that now follows---

I have recently been trying to get my own dedicated discussion forum website up-and-running. For the last few weeks I have been experimenting with a free-to-use system (phpBB), because I have admittedly been wary of investing money in tried-and-tested software when I was unsure if anyone would even look at my site.

So after many late nights and long days spent customising the phpBB layouts to suit my requirements (and ironing out all of the minor bugs that were evident), I launched my forum site online a week ago Monday.

On the good side of things, the site was receiving around 250 unique visits per day up until yesterday, and over 100 people registered to use the forums - so I am now more-than-satisfied that there is a strong interest in what I am trying to create... because this is just based on word-of-mouth!

However, phpBB seems to be more bug-riddled than I initially believed and on Tuesday this week (curiously soon after the forum exceeded a 100 postings) there have been all manner of database problems. Users cannot login properly, moderator/administrator rights have gone haywire, topics spread across multiple pages will not even open.... the list goes on.

As you can imagine, I am not happy about this, as the site was starting to gain momentum and regular visitors. Despite a valliant attempt to sort out the many problems that have arisen in the last 24 hours, I have reached the conclusion that phpBB is not stable enough for my needs, and I no longer feel safe in running it on my virtual hosting account at Tera-Byte.

Therefore, after spending most of this morning reading about it on these forums and across various places on the web, I am convinced that I should bite the bullet, buy a license to use vBulletin and try to re-coup my costs through banner advertising on the site when I launch it.

So here are some questions I am hoping somebody out there can answer before I proceed any further with my plans.......

1) I have a plan 6 virtual hosting account with Tera-Byte at my disposal. There would be nothing but the vBulletin forums running on this account. It offers 40gb of bandwidth per month. I am not expecting to be receiving anywhere near as much traffic or postings as these forums receive, but does anyone have experience in running a medium-sized vBulletin installation on a similar account spec to what I have? If so, would you say that my account specification is man-enough to run vBulletin?

2) I am very competent with general HTML, and reasonably adept with PHP coding. Is vBulletin tricky to manipulate to produce a very different header file from the default? I mean, if I wanted to make the header portion of my vBulletin look similar to the one here, is it fairly easy to implement for someone with reasonable web design skills? Furthermore, is it easy to integrate banner functions in either the header or footer portions of the vBulletin scripts?

3) Can anyone recommend an affiliate banner ad provider that:-
i) specifically offers a category for fashion and/or clothing-related advertisers? (as my forums will be fashion-related, I cannot abide having ads for computers and the like!!!)
ii) will allow sign-up immediately, regardless of my site's monthly impressions?
iii) is reliable, and not down every other day of the week?
I'm not vastly concerned about getting the highest possible rate for click-throughs or impressions... so long as they have a good reputation, pay out on time, and have the above points in their favour. If I could earn back what it will cost me to purchase the vBulletin license, then I would be more than satisfied!

And that's it! Any advice people can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

TrRel

For the affiliate and advertising programs, you can check www.freewebspace.net, then go to the forum link on the left bottom side.

Good luck.

ebird

I'm sorry if this is not terribly helpful, but congratulations on your switch to vBulletin. phpBB is a fine piece of software, but I'd wait for 2.0 before using it for a serious site.

For the vB template and coding, I think it'll be best if you ask that over @ the vB forums. I'm sure they can give you a quick answer for your q's regarding that there.

q

Originally posted by TrashedReality
1) If so, would you say that my account specification is man-enough to run vBulletin?
I can't tell you for sure about your configuration (not experienced enough with it yet), but I do know that the vBulletin forums have a lot of discussion about CPU and bandwidth usage. Check it out here. (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/index.php)
2) Is vBulletin tricky to manipulate to produce a very different header file from the default? ... Furthermore, is it easy to integrate banner functions in either the header or footer portions of the vBulletin scripts?
Not at all. The interface is really easy to work with -- you just cut and paste the HTML -- and you ought to be able to make it work for you with minimal hassle. Part of the reason I decided to upgrade to the full version (instead of the lite version I had been running) is that the header and footer can also be parsed as PHP code. Big plus.
As far as banners go, I still don't have my full version up and running yet, but you can easily just insert whatever HTML or javascript or PHP code that you use to display your banners. All you really have to do is to write out the code, go into vB's admin control panel, and then insert it. It displays as if it were any other web page.
3) Can anyone recommend an affiliate banner ad provider...?
I don't know specifically about a pay-per-click program, but if you're looking for an exchange program, I've had great luck with Microsoft's bCentral (http://www.bcentral.com). The sign-up was fast and the server has always been up. There are about 200 categories you can choose from -- you can have your ads targeted to other like-minded sites, and you can filter out content from other categories you know your visitors won't be interested in. It's pretty good, and free (although you can upgrade to better services).
I would NOT recommend SmartAge. Their server was rarely, if ever, available, and in the week that I was with them, they displayed only banners for themselves. And this is after I was supposed to be getting banners from other like-minded sites, too.

Hope that helps. :)

Originally posted by TrashedReality
1) I have a plan 6 virtual hosting account with Tera-Byte at my disposal. There would be nothing but the vBulletin forums running on this account. It offers 40gb of bandwidth per month. I am not expecting to be receiving anywhere near as much traffic or postings as these forums receive, but does anyone have experience in running a medium-sized vBulletin installation on a similar account spec to what I have? If so, would you say that my account specification is man-enough to run vBulletin?

TrRel, in general the forum itself will be fine on this type of plan. What becomes the issue is *resources*. You are on a shared hosting plan with other accounts. You are *not* on a dedicated server. If the site becomes too popular, you *will be asked to move it to a dedicated server (no matter where you go).

The only variation on this is, the server itself. A more powerful server might buy you more time, but there are so many variables that go into this.

For now, you will be fine.