Results 1 to 14 of 14
  1. #1

    Serious advice needed on hosting

    Well, I'm hoping to get some good feedback on what to do about my current situation.

    I co-own/run a message board/forum. The forum has grown by quite a large amount, which is the root of my problem.

    Our original hosting company, besides being no responsive, shut down our board due to its size and informed us that we would need to switch to another more expensize service (they tell us this after 4 days of us being down).

    We decided to switch companies to another service that offered us a larger amount of space at a little less of a cost than our original service. After a few months they notified us that our board was too large for the service we signed up for and told us that we would need to upgrade. They offered us a deal which was a few dollars more but they garanteed us that this would suit all of our needs. Nine months later we are now shut down again due to our size. I am so fustrated over this I'm about to pop.

    I don't want to switch to a dedicated server due to money constraints but I would like a service that can hold our needs from now until.

    My question is does anyone else know what the other large fourm groups do to keep there board operational without having to switch to a dedicated server? The last thing that I want to so is to have to go to a membership system in order to keep the board up and running.

    Any suggestions would be VERY welcomed. If you have a suggestion that cannot be posted PLEASE PM me. I'm near desperate status.

    THANKS in advance.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    220
    If you can't afford a dedicated server why not kill some of the features on your message forum that eats up a lot of resources?

  3. #3
    Tried that. We killed off our picture gallery section (which really hurt) and some of the other things. Be basically brought it down to a basic level. Our problem is that we keep growing (users). If only there was a way to manage the bandwith needed better.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Lake Arrowhead, CA
    Posts
    789
    Some ideas:

    - Manage your growth and restrict the number of users who can be online at once.

    - Make sure you're using gzip/zlib compression.

    - Read and post in the forum software developer's message board(s) for tips on bandwidth and database optimization.

    - I doubt the hosts are shutting you down for invalid reasons, so after you've optimized the forums as much as you can, be willing to pay what's required to host them (and to do what's required to raise the funds). That probably means accepting donations or a sponsorship. If your forum is large enough to be nearing the need for a dedicated server, then it should ber large enough for advertising to make some sense.

    - Do you have (in your forum population) the expertise and trust level required to build and run your own colocated server?
    http://www.srohosting.com
    Stability, redundancy and peace of mind

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    CA, USA
    Posts
    1,903
    get a semi-dedicate. BTW, do you mind to tell us how much you pay each month? I have a feeling that you have one of those low price plan and both of your host kick you out since it use too much resource.
    ◊ James | sales@vnpixel.com |
    ◊ aim: vnpixel • msn: support@vnpixel.com • yahoo: vn_pixel
    ◊ http://www.vnpixel.com

  6. #6
    Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'm going to review them with the other guy who is the board admin.

    The other person that helps to maintain the board probably has enough experience to build and run a colocated server but its the money issue.

    We pay $275 a year for 10000MB and 50GB Monthly Transfer. I wouldn't mind paying double this if I never had to deal with this problem again.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Posts
    4,980
    How many users are active in the forum in any given time period? How many members do you have and what forum board software are you using?

    We have a client with 3000+ members having 30 users active any time period and the load was not real high, so there might be something wrong with your web host / your board settings. Ignore this statement if you have larger community than that.

  8. #8
    We have approx 1300-1400 registered members with a high of 85 users online at once and an average of 15-25 depending on the time of day.

    I found out last night from our old hosting company that we were shut down for spamming and excessive processor usage. When I explained to the tech that people are able to sign up for e-mail notification on a thread using the forum software (just like in this software) and that's probably what the "spamming" orginated from, I was told it didn't matter since we were using too much processor time. What happened to the good old days when people you paid for a service tried to work with you to solve a problem? I would have been more than happy to take suggestions on how to fix it so that it worked out for both of us, instead they shut us down without warning. (yeah, I'm still a little upset about it)

    The worst part is that we pre-paid them for a years worth of service, of course they don't want to give us a refund on the unused time

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Posts
    4,980
    May I ask how much are you paying them?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2000
    Location
    Orlando FL USA
    Posts
    1,315
    We have approx 1300-1400 registered members with a high of 85 users online at once and an average of 15-25 depending on the time of day.
    Charge a $10 to $50 a year annual membership fee to cover the costs of a dedicated server and ensure a strong future that welcomes growth rather than fearing it.

    If the forum REALLY NEEDS to allow free entry and participation then keep membership free but charge for 'advanced membership'.

    I use a few various forums that do this and I've had no problem paying the membership fees knowing that it helps them stay online. Regular members enter and participate freely but when they post URLs they are not automatically linked, they cannot have avatars or the special little "advanced member" sticker under their nicks. They cannot use the image gallery or [ img ] features....

    Paid Members get avatars, full use of the post editing tools (bold, italics, colors, images etc), special sticker under their nicks, and auto linking on their URLs and sigs.

    Key being everyone participates happily and there is a LOW COST incentive to keep the board alive by charging for 'advanced features'.
    FutureQuest.net
    Quality Services & Professional Support Since 1998
    Click Here To Visit the Community

  11. #11
    Yeah, I tried the membership thing on another board and to be honest I didn't like it at all. A small few of the people that paid felt like they now have ownership of the board instead of paying to participate. It caused real confusion. Also we would have never collected enough money to pay for the $100/month for a dedicated server.

    I think the service we had would have been fine for our needs if they had realistic views of what an active forum requires and would have been willing to work with us.

  12. #12
    You can also try adding advertising to your site. If you truly have such a popular board, you may just sell enough advertising for it to pay for itself.

    Another possibility is to ask for donations. You would be surprised. But a lot of those users in the community are willing to donate to something that they feel is of great value or use to them. Since you have a lot of users, my feel is that you would have some. That's from my own experience in communities.

    In short, think of way to get more resources rather than trying to squeeze your forum into a plan that's not meant to handle it. Your forum is going to stretch any shared hosting location you go.
    ••• Like us on Facebook to qualify for discounts! •••
    ••• http://www.sprintserve.net •••
    ••• Offering: | Internap FCP Bandwidth! | Rebootless Kernel Updates! | Magento Optimized Hosting | Wordpress Hosting | •••
    ••• Services: | Managed Multiple Cores 64bit Servers | Server Management | •••

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    7,954
    If you have enough traffic try working a deal with a host for advertising or sponsoring. You could post a requet in the WHT Free or Sponsored Hosting Requests Forum.

    Also which forum are you running? Some of the WHT users might have some forum specific tips.

  14. #14
    I have donated to messsage boards in the past, in fact for these very same reasons. If a board gets popular then it will likely outgrow most shared hosting plans available unless they are tailored to message board hosting.

    Another option would be a virtual private server as available at http://www.linode.com/ and many others. They have nice process limitations that will keep you from using too much processor time and in short your board would be limited to what you had paid for and you wouldn't go over. Please don't take that as an endorsement for linode.com, they were just easy to find as an example.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •