Website Hosting

[MNice]

I'm an officer with a sportsman's club and some of the members would like to get a HSOforum started. Are the free sites worth anything, or would we be better off with a pay site. We are after just an informational site, nothing fancy, just meeting and activity information. Any suggestions??

Thanks!!

[shnelson]

Free sites usually involve some time of advertisement or banners, if you don't mind them displaying whatever they choose on your site that's the way to go to save money.

Otherwise you can go with a host like godaddy, they have plans for around $5 a month which shouldn't be too tough for a group of guys to come up with. Throw another 7-$10 into a yearly domain fee and you'll have a web presence in no time!

I prefer paying a small fee to be able to control what is displayed on my websites, and for less than the cost of a lunch at wendy's you really can't complain .

[Dbl]

Free sites usually involve some time of advertisement or banners, if you don't mind them displaying whatever they choose on your site that's the way to go to save money.

Otherwise you can go with a host like godaddy, they have plans for around $5 a month which shouldn't be too tough for a group of guys to come up with. Throw another 7-$10 into a yearly domain fee and you'll have a web presence in no time!

I prefer paying a small fee to be able to control what is displayed on my websites, and for less than the cost of a lunch at wendy's you really can't complain .

I agree completely! I happen to use GoDaddy as well, been using them about 5 years with no issues.

[DTro]

If you don't require much. NING is a good free one to try. They make it very easy.

Remember, for a HSOforum, you will need to register the domain, have a server, and also create the site.

Some of those free ones make it very painless, especially if your requirements are minimal.

[Jim Jensen]

If you are only going to have a small number of people visiting the HSOforum occasionally and you have an always on internet connection, dsl or similar you could host the HSOforum on your personal computer. That is what I do. All you would have to do is register a domain name and install Windows IIS (internet information service). This is way it is with Windows XP. I don’t know how it works with Vista or Windows 7, the same I would assume. Windows XP allows you to have one HSOforum. I have a second computer here at home that has Server 2003 on it which allows you to run more than one site, I have five sites. It doesn’t slow my connection down any but they have very little traffic. My websites are for me. If anyone else sees them it is by accident.

[Swill]

Maybe you should talk to Rick on creating a separate, or new forum category for sports clubs, brew clubs, bbq clubs, fly tying clubs, you name it. I bet that category would be a nice addition to the forum categories, plus it would be a good way to gain new members.

[Cicada]

You could create a business page on facebook and have members sign up as fans of that page. Then, when you post any new information, it will go to their page automatically. That's free.