newbie - url - domain name - hosting questions
 

Hi Folks,

Although I have some tech background, I have never run a forum, and we are looking to set up one on Bible issues. We don't expect major traffic, however we do have a medium-size base from email forums who will jump right in, so moderate traffic is our desire and expectation. Perhaps a couple of hundred members and a dozen or two posts a day, in he near-term future. Numbers are always dicey, time tells.

I'm going to ask a free stream-of-consciousness questions. I am hoping to set up in the next few days. Nice that you have a forum section designed for this purpose. Probably, if all goes well, I'll have some follow-ups.

First .. I understand that there are a few good free forums, and vbulletin is the most-liked paid. I am pretty much convinced to try to go to vbulletin at the front-end to simply save time and effort in the long run. The cost seems reasonable for any earnest long-term forum, so that is not a major issue, even with some extras later. However the 24-hour demo seems a bit on the lean side for a trial, compared to actually having a forum in action.

Now the name (the url). Do I have the choice for a vbulletin url (not user-friendly) name versus a domain name I buy ? I don't have a forum-friendly name right now ready so I guess that I pick that up before I start up, to avoid having administrative name extra-work. And then folks come to the forum through www.bibleforumsmartname.com (dummy name). So choosing the name should be done before starting up, to avoid a bunch of hassles. Is that correct ?

(I saw on another thread that changing the name even on the same web-host adds a bit of complication, although if it is real minor we might want to start up with a generic vbulletin longish name and then work through the permanent url name later, in a couple of weeks.)

Next, the web-hosting. Some hosts seem to be forum-oriented, however mostly the freebie ones that work with the other forum softwares. So ultimately, given meeting the requirements for MySQL and such and a reputation for support and solidity and response time, is there any real distinction between choosing a web-host for vBulletin than there would be for any other web hosting ? I am paying for a web-host that is inactive at the moment and I simply tell them about the forum and point the forum to them, or something like that ? (Assuming they have the new url registered to my account, I have not checked if they consider each URL a separate account or not, or if they just go by space and bandwidth. Does this vary among hosts, dunno, all new to me.) Oh, the web host I have ready to go is Webado, not well-known but apparently quite friendly and competent. Anybody with experiences can share. I realize there are many dozens of favorite hosts :) .

I'll stop here, feel free to give general advice outside my questions as well, I am hoping to get moving on it pronto !

Shalom,
Steven Avery