First of all, greetings to everyone in these boards!

Now I'd apreciate ANY input regarding my situation... and I guess the best way for you to help me is by being thorough:

Around December of last year I decided I'd learn HTML and make my own site with reviews, news and miscelanea articles regarding videogames. I had been working as a reviewer for almost a year but the site I was working for pretty much... stunk.

Learning HTML wasn't really bad and by March of this year I had a site ready and I joined iPowerWeb as the host for my gaming site. I've been doing some research since then and I know that a lot of people complaint about them but so far I had no major trouble with them. Still, I intend to move on to something better specially now that I found this forum and WebHostingTalk. However, since I payed for two years in advance (best value it seemed at the time) I might as well take this time to improve my HTML knowledge and get my site known to my target audience.

This is where I need help:
1 - You see, I have no idea how much Space and Bandwidth I really need to maintain a site like mine. Right now I'm doing ok, but that's because hardly anyone knows the site... but once I advertise it enough, I'm afraid my 15GB of B/W may not be enough. For the record, my site has no movie downloads or anything major like that - just text and pictures. So if anyone can give me an estimate of how much Space and B/W a site this runs on, I'd apreciate it!

2 - One of the features I'd like my site to have is a Message Board. The site I used to work for used EZBoard and I like it but I have two questions here:

a) are there any other remote message boards like EZBoard out there that you'd recommentd and...

b) does it take a lot of B/W if I install a Message Board like vBulletin on my own server?

Any help is grossly apreciated...

15gig transfer a month is plenty, the average website probably averages around 1-3mb, meaning you could get roughly 340-1000 hits per gig. If your worried about your transfer limit, I wouldn't, not at the stage your in right now anyway. JMO!

Thanks!

Yes, I think you're right. As I stand, 15G's is more than enough but, as I pointed out above, I'd like to add a Message Board and assuming I get... let's say 100 visits per day in the forums, would it still be enough?

By the way, I'd still apreciate any comments regarding Message Boards/Forums like EZBoard (Remote) or vBulletin

Even with a message board 15 gig should still be plenty for the time being. It's a product of this industry with hosts offering more and more transfer lately that has created a false sense that websites use a lot of transfer - most will never go over 500 meg a month. Forums do increase this but unless you're talking a lot more users then the diffeence won't be that much.

Ezboard is good though is you later decide to move the forum onto your own site you won't be able to transfer all those posts, meaning they're lost. Best to start with your own forum (VBulletin, PHPBB, Invisionboard) and just trim out old posts later if you want.

Ezboard itself is probably the best of the free offerings and seems the most stable of them that I know of (in fact I can't say I really know of any others worth recommending)

If you find a host that seems good but later appears not to offer the transfer you need you can just pack up the database and take it with you.

2 years is a long time to pay in advance for hosting. Even as someone who works in the hosting industry I always recommend monthly payment, at least for the first few months. While it's a cheaper solution if everything works out, it can be a costly mistake if you pick a bad apple.

Greg Moore

Thanks, that really helped.

I don't know if I should make a new topic for this but... out of the three MB's mentioned (vBulleting, Invision and PHPBB), what are the main diferences between them?

VBulletin is the only commercial script in that list (ie the only one that costs money).

The advantage to it is that it's been well tested, and the developers have a strong commitment to continuing it's development. It's pretty well bug free, and a solid performer.

Invisonboard and phpBB are both well used boards and well liked. They're not as old as VB, or not as solid, or bug free. Development may or may not continue, depending on the developers as they have no financial responsibility.

Greg Moore

Bandwidth should only be considered a cost - once you are getting enough visitors to use a lot of bandwidth you should easily be able to generate enough revenues from your site to cover than bandwidth. We're talking about small little advertising or donations to the site, a Gig of bandwidth from a high quality provider is about $4, and from a low quality provider can be as cheap as $0.50. Always take the best quality bandwidth you can, never settle for the providers who are known to have a lot of latency (cogent/williams as examples.)

With that said its simple Math: 500 Visitors at 2 Meg of Data Each (thats a large overestimation) gives you 1 Gig per 500 Visitors. If one in 500 visitors will donate three dollars to your cause, or if you can sell something to one in 500 visitors that gives you a $3 referal fee or profit, you'll be set. The point I make is that you shouldn't really have a problem getting the bandwidth covered by your users.

*snip*



In terms of features, you said that Invision had some extras, am I right? Like what? I was looking for something that allows "sticky" posts, (ab)user bans and a profanity filter. Some other things too, but those three interest me particularly.




Wow... I knew nothing about that, thanks! I have no advertisement in my site right now, but I was hoping I could oover the costs with simple banners (everyone is used to those and don't mind as much as pop-ups)

Can anyone share some tips on where to look for good advertisers and what prices I should expect from banners?

Thanks to all the support you both have given me... yes, I'm totally green at this but I'm trying to learn... sorry

You'll have a hard time finding a good advertising provider that gives a decent rate for clicks, but they do exist. People in general on the internet no longer see banner ads, etc... For example, I can visit a web site of a friend and later he can ask me if I found the banners annoying - but I didn't even see them. Your eyes become trained not to see them. For this reason advertisers are offering better rates for actual sales, instead of impressions. Check out the services at commision junction - cj.com - I think they are OK but Im not sure. I've heard of people making a few hundred dollars and having their account suspended after that, this is what you have to look out for. I have very little experience in the advertising industry from the side you are looking at it.

Yes, you're right. The general audience is used to banners so it doens't bother them much... that's why I was aiming for that sort of advertisement.

You see, I don't really plan to make a living out of my website, only earn enough to cover Hosting and little else. I've heard banners pay very little these days but if it's enough to cover my expenses then I'm happy.

Thanks for the link, though. I needed a lead and I'm sure it's a start!

No problem - You may also want to consider requesting small donations or something through a PayPal type system. Give people an option to have a "banner-free" web site membership, and "charge" them a "donation fee" of two or three dollars per year. Let them know that it only goes to covering bandwidth costs and that if they like the site they should consider it. It's another idea you might want to look into.