We are working on moving our forum to self hosting, so I've been looking at different hosting companies lately. Our domain is registered through GoDaddy and I know that they do website hosting as well. They also have a special running where you can renew a domain for $1.99 if you sign up a new hosting account, so I can get my domain renewed and get 3 months of hosting for a total of $8 (the hosting would be $5/month after that, though).

The hitch is, though, that I'm not sure whether I should go with them or find another company and transfer the domain. It seems like GoDaddy doesn't use cpanel, which kind of makes me a little hesitant. I'm used to using cpanel and I couldn't find any kind of "demo" for the GoDaddy hosting interface.

Going with another company might mean paying a few dollars more up front, but I'm wondering if that might be better in the long run?

Has anyone else used GoDaddy and/or do you have any opinions about using them?

(P.S. If there's anyone out there who is familiar with transferring InvisionFree databases onto a self hosted board, please PM me. I'll be needing to do that sometime within the next few weeks and I'm a little nervous. lol)

Beans and I wound up using GoDaddy when we moved Sleepless from InvisionFree to self-hosting. I know there are plenty of people who dislike GoDaddy intensely but we haven't had any problems with them. In fact, there were times when she needed a little help and called them, and she said they were very helpful on the phone.

At first we went with iPage. I cannot overemphasize the terrible experience we had with them. We wound up giving up on them and losing about $80 in the process. I wrote about my experience in this thread on RPG-D.

She moved all posts, forums, etc. from IF when we switched onto SMF software and, while tedious, I don't think she found it excessively difficult. I'll see if she can PM you about it later today, maybe.

If you want a great webhost with outstanding support (Never a dull moment in the self-hosting community), I'd recommend absolutely Host Gator. They have 24/7 live support chat (Included!) that gets things done real fast.

For 9.95 a month, Host Gator's shared account has unlimited bandwidth and space (Just keep in mind the resources, but running IPB 3.1.1 [always up to date, lol] I've not hit their resources limit anywhere close).

I do use GoDaddy for my domain, but I have it set to my own name servers to point to my website at Host Gator.

Hope this helps you in your decision ^^

I used Godaddy for my website (not an RPG or forum, but a personal website) years ago and I wasn't crazy about them. I never had problems with them or their support. It was easy to start and just as easy to transfer, but I ended up leaving for a site that offered exactly what I was looking for (Dreamhost). Again, I have no experience with either of these hosts when it comes to forums. I used them for personal websites, so I rarely needed to hop onto their site to use their services, I just used an FTP to update my files.

So, I guess I'm not really helpful. I can only say that it was an okay experience. If you're not familiar with web building then there may be a learning curve. I recommend googling if your forum software works well with Godaddy, because the number one reason I switched was because it didn't play very nice with a popular blogging software I used.

I use GotCanyonsSolutions. I've been with them for several years now and they're great. Very little down time, really great customer service (the owner helped me transfer from my old host, and has been really amazing about helping me restore things when I got hacked once and when I accidentally broke my entire forum once.)

You would need a domain name, but as for the hosting, with GCS it's only $7.99 a month. They have cpanel, smf on Fantastico will install in a second and if you ever do have issues, the site backs up your content daily so chances are good that if you didn't back things up, the owner has a copy he can restore.

I've emailed him to see if he'd be willing to offer any deals to people affected by the IPBfree situation, but even if not, $7.99 a month for 3 GB Disk Space is pretty darned good. You only get one sub domain but there might be a way to negotiate for that if you needed more.


Anyway, I can shoot you the contact info if you want to look in to it.

I tried making a site for my Uncle on GoDaddy hosting... it wasn't easy and I had a difficulty with it. The hosting wasn't that bad though. I've been using a Place called Ace-Host and have been with them for 5 happy years personally.

I use dreamhost. Some people complain about them a lot and say they're pretty bad but while yes we have had some problems in the past, we're hosted insanely cheap and I'venot even began to touch my account limit by far!

They have a lot of unlimited stuff, I know a group of people who have 1 account and host all their sites on it without issues, so if you can find someone trustworthy you can even share the costs and all.

If anyone wants to use Dreamhost I'll be happy to share my promocode :p

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. :)

Annnnd just in case I needed any more reason why we need to move off of IF, several of the IF servers appear to be down and have been down for almost an hour now. Perhaps I'm paranoid because of the iPBfree tragedy, but I am SO NERVOUS.

Going by that IF server status check page, it's only three servers that are down: z1, z9, and z10. We're on z10. Boo.

As for the hosting I'm looking for, I'd really like to find something around $5/month, as that's what the GoDaddy hosting would be. It's very important that I not take on anything that might cause me to stress in the future and while $10-15/month might not seem like a lot now, there might be months ahead when I can't really scrap that together and I don't want to risk losing my site because of it. So if anyone knows any good hosting companies that are in that ballpark, that would be great. :)

Btw, I know some people might be against this, but we are going to be using IPB 1.3 Final (the last free version - NOT a nulled version). I've considered switching to SMF, but I tried it out a little yesterday and while most of the admin panel seems pretty straightforward, I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to the "themes". I got our background to work and changed the text/link colors, but nothing else I did seemed to have any affect. Perhaps we'll look at switching to SMF in the future (unless some kind SMF pro would adapt our current layout for SMF XD). lol

Anyway, thanks again and I'm still open to opinions/suggestions/thoughts/whatever! :)

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The IF server downtime inspired our members to raise the rest of the money for our hosting (XD <3) so I'm probably going to be getting hosting either tonight or tomorrow so I can go ahead and install the software. Then all I'll have to do is buy the database from IF and do the transfer...which I'm still clueless about. lol Anyone happen to have a tutorial on how to install IF databases into self hosted forums? XD

Hey! I use InMotionHosting and honestly, they're wonderful. I've been with a couple other hosts in the past, but I'm just so impressed with the service I've received. I've spoken with them several times on the phone (they have 24/7 phone support included with all packages) and they've always been fantastic.

Right now I'm on the $7.95/month business class plan, which includes 50 MySQL databases, unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, 100 subdomains, cPanel, daily backups, one free domain registration (even though I see you already have a domain), webmail...you name it, you get it. Now, I started on the $5.95/month plan, which I got at an introductory rate through CNET for $4.95/month, but it only had 2 MySQL databases and I ended up needing more, as I also host a screencap gallery and might add more in the future. If you're just hosting your RPG, though, you'd be good to go. The downside to InMotion, however, is you have to pay all at once for the whole year, which is something you might not be able to afford to do.

They also have "cheap" hosting, but the cheapest you'd be able to get is $4.00/month and that requires a 24-month prepayment. For an extra dollar more per month, you get a lot better plan and are only locked in for one year.

I use SurpassHosting, and I have since 2005 and they are beyond excellent to me, too. The month-to-month cost on the package I have (Which is the Share - Power Plan) is seven dollars. Six dollars a month if you pay annually. You get 500GB Disk Space, Unmetered Bandwidth, 10 Domains as well as a bunch of other stuff like unlimited subdomains, ftp accounts, email, mysql databases to name a few. And they have fantastico and cpanel, of course. And the support is usually good and quick.

About SMF - Have you looked at the RC versions? the new theme they've built is exceptional and easy to customise once you get used to it - it only took me an hour or two to work it out and looking at your layout, I think you could make it more or less the same. Plus there are things like the subaccounts mod (works on RC 2 at the moment) and the simple portal mod, which allows for sidebars without having to code them in yourself and they are collapsible for those who don't like them. I'd be willing to help out where I can if you do try the RC and get stuck. (the new layout is called Curve. It's very adjustable. I've made several skins for my site using it as the base and modifying.

I second this! I want to make the switch to IPB 3, but am clueless on how you go about transferring IF to IPB >__< Pwease help us!

Well June, you would have to pay IF to download a backup of your database. Then you would have to contact the Conversions department (sales@invisionpower.com, AFAIK) about this. I believe the general conversion fee was just upped to $120. After your DB is converted, you either need to grab IPS Hosting (9.99 a month for the cheapest plan, but no mods that require file edits can be used) or the actual license (149.99) and self host (4.99+ from what I've seen per month).

This I know! I haven't done it myself, but I've heard of the process.

Go here to find out the prices:
http://www.invisionfree.com/conversion/

Open a sales ticket through your ACP and tell them you want to buy a download of your database. They'll get back to you in a couple of days with further instructions. You pay, they send the file, and then once you have your license for IPB 3 and it's all installed and hosted and such (unless you're doing hosting through them), open a sales ticket with them and they'll guide you through restoring your posts and such on the new forums. Actually, I believe they'll do it for you, the restoration bit.

Thanks! :)

We're not going through IPB, though, so I'm pretty sure I'll actually have to do the transfer myself. So I'm trying to find some kind of tutorial (or just a general info page) on how to do it.

As for the hosting, we went ahead and got the GoDaddy hosting for now (hey, it was only $6 for 3 months, so if we're not happy with them, then we've only lost $6 and can still switch to another host next month lol). I put up a quick "we're moving" page with the IF link to the forum (since we still need to buy the database, etc) and requested for the DNS to be pointed to the domain hosting.

So I have about a day, maybe two, to figure out how to use the database once we buy it (we haven't put in a sales ticket just yet - I'd rather wait until I'm sure I know what I'm doing). So if anyone knows how to actually install the database onto a new server, please post here and/or PM me!

I think I'd like to point out as well that if you can find someone (myself included) that may be able to assist with upgrading via their own copies it might be cheaper. No guarantees it would work but I'm pretty sure you can do major upgrades of the software per version. I believe you can take the 1.3 database, covert it to the 2.0 and then from 2.0 to 3.0.

It would be cheaper then the other methods but (at least for me) require testing.

it's easy to transfer the database to a self-hosted 1.3 board. I can help you with that.

However, I do not recommend godaddy hosting. I used them a few years ago and from what I remember, you don't get cpanel and I had great difficulty installing my forum. I just didn't like them. Remember this motto: you get what you pay for. Godaddy is great for domains but hosting, not so much IMO.

I personally use lunarpages. I've only suffered extreme downtime once, about sometime last year and they were very helpful and kept replying to my help tickets. The issue was resolved and I've not been down since. Most hosting places require you to sign up for a year or so in advance, paying one lump sum. I love lunarpages because you can find coupons that take off money or give you more months. http://www.retailmenot.com/view/lunarpages.com If that 50% one works, that is an AWESOME deal. omg. Here's the run down of their prices

60 Months (4.95 USD/mo + FREE Setup) Basic
24 Months (6.95 USD/mo + FREE Setup) Basic
12 Months (8.95 USD/mo + FREE Setup) Basic
6 Months (9.95 USD/mo + 30.00 Setup) Basic
3 Months (10.95 USD/mo + 30.00 Setup) Basic

So a 2 year hosting package is $131.40 (after the coupon). They apparently charge $2 a month for cpanel now. That's unsettling. eugh. The only downside is that when you renew your package, you can't use coupons. You pay whatever it would be. But yeah, I'll still stick with them cause I don't want to move. I've moved hosts so many times, going to cheaper deals...and I'd just rather pay for something I know is good. But I don't recommend getting a domain with them. They are twice as expensive.

Double checked the upgrade thing. Since this is a version of IPB, if you purchase a license (or I believe even just get hosted with them) they allow for One free upgrade so they would be able to upgrade the 1.3 for free BUT you need to make sure that you contact their Sales team to souble check that but I'm pretty sure this is accurate as it's in here:
http://community.invisionpower.com/resourc...d/upgrading-r18

Unfortunately, I don't have the $150 (+ $25/6 months) it would require to get the license. So free is the way I have to go. :/

Good news, though! I have successfully installed our forummmm!! *excited*

All I have to do now is buy the database and try to transfer it. I think I have figured it out, but I'm not 100% sure yet. I guess I'll just have to try it and see what happens once I have the database.

What I'm thinking is... There's a "database backups" folder on my host and I think that I need to upload the forum database into that folder and then in the hosting admin panel go to "restore database" and select the forum database.

I'm really hoping that's what I have to do anyway. I find it difficult to imagine that it will be that simple, but we shall see!

Thank you for all of the advice, everyone. :)

What forum software are you going with? Some people offer crawlers that can get all the information off your database... It's a little bit more complicated, but it can be done for free. I moved my old site from IPBFree to SMF with a free database crawler with limited complications.

I did some googling after I PMed you and one source says that godaddy does have phpmyadmin. So look at this and it might help you if someone isn't available to help. It's the same concept even though it's for something else lol.

http://www.mariasguides.com/2006/09/25/mov...account-part-2/

I'm not sure if IF gives you a complete backup or if they'll just give you ibf_members, ibf_posts, and ibf_topics. But remembering now, you'll have to delete any tables that sm_install put in that you're going to replace cause it will tell you that the table already exists. But I'll definitely be here to help you. I promise it's not hard or painful xD.

Going from InvisionFree to IPB 1.3 Final (the same that IF uses). We may look into switching to something else in the future, but for now, we've decided to stick to what we know. I was thinking about installing a test SMF forum in a different folder and playing around with it in my spare time.

I actually found a crawlers script by chance the other night and it did seem a bit complicated, with all the changing user settings, passwords, etc. We've already raised the funds for our database, so we're going to go ahead and just buy it from IF. Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Ahh! Yeah, that site looks like it'll help for sure. Thanks for helping me with this. <3

Since I was up all last night trying to get the forum to install, I am just getting off of work now, so I'm going to go home and crash for a few hours. Then I'll be back. I have to wait for the IF dude to message me back about buying the database anyway. Hopefully, there will be a message waiting for me when I get back online. lol

Be back in a bit!

My RP big board sat on a Dreamhost Private Server for two years. I highly recommend against Dreamhost PS. Dreamhost Shared (the cheapest plan) though is good for new forums that don't need much resources and for people who are new to administrating a website. I'd think cPanel is needlessly feature-rich and cryptic for people who don't need all the features. You obviously don't have root access on shared hosting and I don't think forums with low activity should waste money on a VPS/dedicated server anyways.

I just upgraded my large vBulletin forum to its own hybrid (semi-dedicated) server.

If you still need help, I'm fairly friendly if I've had coffee in the past 10 minutes. :)