• Newbie Basics – The HTML Layout

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    In this article we will look at some HTML tags that you will be using in every HTML document that you create. They are the base for every web page and are the essential pieces of HTML coding to ensure that your pages display correctly.

    The Structure Tags.

    Here is a look at the main structure tags. You will have to get used to these since you will be using them for all your pages.

    We would suggest that you start by copy and pasting the structure into your document then creating my page once they’re in place.

    Make it a habit to ensure that all surfers (regardless of their browsers) will be able to identify your creations. Each of these HTML tags are used in pairs with a start and ending tag in the same way as we mentioned in the previous chapter.

    <HTML> </HTML>

    The HTML tag tells the browser that your page is a valid HTML page.

    The first and last tag on all your HTML documents will be this tag.

    The complete HTML coding for the remainder of your document will be placed between these two HTML tags.

    <HEAD> </HEAD>

    This tag is used to reference your document.

    <TITLE> </TITLE>

    This tag enables you to give your HTML document a title.

    It’s best to insert descriptive text about your page between these tags we will go into this in more detail in the later chapters.

    This will also be the name that is displayed in a web browser’s system tray when someone bookmarks or adds your HTML document to their favorites list.

    <BODY> </BODY>

    The entire coding for your page goes in between these two tags.

    Basically, they mark the beginning and end of your web page’s body. They are the essence of your HTML.

    All your HTML tags in your document will be resting in between these two HTML tags.

    Putting It All Together.

    Now that the main tags have been outlined, it’s time to put them all together. Here is an example of what your HTML documents should look like.

    <HTML>
    <HEAD>
    <TITLE>The Title Of Your Html Document Goes Here</TITLE>
    </HEAD>

    <BODY>

    All your other HTML tags and text goes here.
    This Is the main body of your HTML document.
    At the end of this text you will also see where the closing Body and HTML tags go.

    </BODY>

    </HTML>

    This is the basic structure for any HTML document. Once these tags are in place, the rest is down to you. These Tags are not case sensitive. In other words, you don’t have to use all capital letters like we have in our Chapters. It won’t make a difference to the overall outcome of your tags. However we would recommend using Caps for your tags. It makes them a lot easier to distinguish from all the other sections of your HTML document coding, as you can see in the example above.

    Article written by Lee

  • Quick Loading Pages Plus Saving Bandwidth

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    Have you noticed how many of the sites out there are trying to make themselves look better than they actually are by using heavy graphics and media files? The fact of the matter is this, most surfers who visit your we pages are viewing them on a screen that is between 15 and 19 inches wide, can only see 216 colors and, are on a connection of 33.6 kb per second (If they are lucky).

    What Does All This Mean?

    What does this mean to you as a webmaster? Simple, try this test.

    Connect to the internet on a 33.6 connection, type in your url and, hold your breath. Does the page load before you need to start gasping for air? If so then you are designing your sites correctly, if not, your pages are far to big in file size.

    I’m pretty sure that some of you can hold your breath for a long period of time so, here is a basic rule of web design. Your pages should, be no larger in file size than 50k in fact, I would even go so far as to say try getting your pages under 30k in size.

    How Can I Get It Under 50K? 30K?

    First, all your graphic images should be as small as possible. Try to get them smaller than 4k. Going up to 6k is reasonable. When designing a graphic for the web site keep in mind the number of colors being used.

    I know, from designing banners myself, it was hard for me to go from millions of color to only 216. Yes, 216 is the number of colors you have on a web safe color pallet.

    Use solid colors when designing your image. PhotoShop has made the gradient such a popular tool. It looks good to fade things in and out. I always see a background border made up of this gradient. I always right click on that image to see the size. The 8k-12k is not worth the space. The problem with the gradient is it uses many colors and dithering. Both take up big time K. The more color you have in an image the bigger it’s going to be.

    Use design more, graphics less. For a web page to be successful it needs to download quickly and look good.

    Here is the dilemma download quick or look good? Instead of designing graphics and taking pictures and turning them into jpgs to make your web page look good, try using color schemes. Use cell colors to make borders. Use the negative space on your web site. What is not there is just as important as what is there.

    Remember sometimes less is more. When in doubt think of a typical visitor coming to your web page. Would that extra graphic sell them or keep them coming back again and again. If the answer is yes, by all means keep it. If the answer is “well maybe” or “it just looks good there”, yank it.

    Your surfers will appreciate not waiting more then they have to. The web is here to make our life easier not to sit in front of a screen waiting for heavy web pages to download.

    Article written by Lee

  • Saving Time Online – Shortcut Keys

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

    The one thing that i have started to do just lately is use shortcut keys. These are actually very easy to get used to and, will save you a lot of effort over a period of time.

    Below you will find a list of the more common shortcut keys in both Windows and Internet Explorer.

    Even if you get used to using one or two of these shortcut keys you will notice the time you start save over a week, hell, i don’t even type the whole domain into my IE address bar anymore!

    Here are the shortcuts for Windows along with the description of what they do:

    Alt + F – File menu options in current program.
    Alt + E – Edit options in current program
    F1 – Universal Help.
    Ctrl + A – Select all text.
    Ctrl + X – Cut selected item.
    Shift + Del – Cut selected item.
    Ctrl + C – Copy selected item.
    Ctrl + Ins – Copy selected item
    Ctrl + V – Paste
    Shift + Ins – Paste
    Home – Goes to beginning of current line.
    Ctrl + Home – Goes to beginning of document.
    End – Goes to end of current line.
    Ctrl + End – Goes to end of document.
    Shift + Home – Highlights from current position to beginning of line.
    Shift + End – Highlights from current position to end of line.
    Ctrl + Left – Moves one word to the left at a time.
    Ctrl + Right – Moves one word to the right at a time.
    Ctrl + Backspace – Delete word to the left of cursor.
    Ctrl + Del – Delete word to the right of cursor.
    Alt + Tab – Switch between open applications.
    Alt + Shift + Tab – Switch backwards between open applications.
    Ctrl + Esc – Bring Up start button.
    Alt + Esc – Switch Between open applications on taskbar.
    F2 – Renames selected Icon
    F3 – Starts find from desktop
    F4 – Opens the drive selection when browsing.
    F5 – Refresh Contents
    Alt + F4 – Closes Current open program.
    Ctrl + F4 – Closes Window in Program
    Alt + Enter – Opens properties window of Selected icon or program.
    Shift + F10 – Simulates right click on selected item.
    Shift + Del – Delete programs/files without throwing into the recycle bin.
    Holding Shift – Boot safe mode or by pass system files.
    Holding Shift – When putting in an audio cd will prevent CD Player from playing.

    The following list are shortcut keys when using Internet Explorer:

    Alt + Left – Back a page.
    Alt + Right – Forward a page.
    F5 – Refresh current page / frame.
    Esc – Stop page or download from loading.
    Ctrl + Enter – Quickly complete an address.
    Ctrl + N – Open New browser window.
    Ctrl + P – Print current page / frame.

    Hopefully this list of shortcut keys will get you saving some time even if its just a few minutes a day. After all, we all know the one thing webmasters need more of is time.

    Article written by Lee

  • Bandwidth Explained

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Hosting | Response: 0

    Bandwidth is the total amount of data that can be sent in a given time between two computer devices. The more bandwidth that is available, the faster the server.

    Any webmaster expecting a decent amount of traffic to their adult site will require a web hosting package that includes a large amount of bandwidth. This is so important, especially with the growth of your online business and, ultimately your sites. The more bandwidth your server has, the larger the number of surfers who will be able to view it at the same time, and the access it quickly will be. If you don’t have enough bandwidth, surfers will not be able to access your site as quickly, and that may turn them off which in turn, will mean they will leave your site.

    For this reason alone, it is important to select a hosting company that can offer you a great deal of bandwidth. As an example, larger hosting providers will have T1 lines or fiber-optic relays to access the Internet; these will provide a fair amount bandwidth. Another way is to get a dedicated server which, in turn, gives you exclusive access to your server’s connectivity instead of sharing it with others, as such allowing for maximum hardware performance.

    To calculate your bandwidth needs, you must know how large each page on your site is, including the graphics and any script usage you may have. Then, you multiply that by the number of views you expect the site to get every month.

    For example, say you have three 5k images on your page and a 2k HTML file – you would have 17k of data on that page. Multiply that by your expected page views (let’s say in this case it is 100,000 per month), and you get 1.7 G of data to be transferred that month for that page alone. Now calculate this for each page, and you will know approximately how much bandwidth your entire site requires.

    The best way of using bandwidth efficiently is to keep the size of your html pages low. In other words, ensure your HTML programming is adequate enough to use minimal amounts of coding for the purpose you want and, that your photos and graphics are small. To reduce photo file sizes you should always use JPEG format, which can reduce files up to 5% of its original size. Make sure to use the GIF format for graphics, as opposed to TIFFs or BMPs, which are generally much larger in file size.

    If you attach URLs to your IMG SRC that link to another person’s images without their permission, this is known throughout the online industry as hotlinking which, costs the person you are linking the image of money and not yourself. For this reason, hotlinking, is looked upon dimly.

    The unfortunate truth is that hotlinking is rife in the online industry. However, lets not let that deter you, by utilizing a file called .htaccess on your server, you can prevent other dishonest webmasters hotlinking your images.

    As with most things in this industry, you need to shop around to find the best prices available to you. However, that said, as a general rule of thumb, a gig of transfer can cost between $1 and $5 these are usually thought to be good prices for a gig of bandwidth. You can also get certain hosting packages that have a specific amount of bandwidth included in the price, however, the one draw back of these types of deals is that, if you go over that limit, you will either need to pay and excess bandwidth usage fee or, upgrade your hosting plan.

    Article Written By Lee

  • Networking – Not Just For Computers

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General, Promotion | Response: 0

    Networking – Not Just For Computers.

    “Networking” is a buzz word today. Everybody talks about it. Everybody hears about it. Everybody wants to do it more effectively. But why? Why do people network, and what do they hope to accomplish?

    Primarily, networking is the process of meeting new people, either through a contact that you initiate, or through an introduction by a third party.

    Networking allows you to meet, and establish a relationship with, people who may not have heard of you and your business through any other method.

    For most professionals, networking is done to increase revenues. Sometimes new clients are found, sometimes suppliers and, sometimes new ways of doing things that increase your bottom line are found through networking.

    When networking you should work towards these common goals:

    To exchange business ideas.
    To get better service.
    To develop your business skills.
    To potentially increase your revenues.
    To establish long term friendships.

    This means that networking is an essential part of building up strong business relationships. We need each other to buy from us, sell to us and, brainstorm with us in order to progress in our fields. In order for us to do these things we must give something back in return, its all about give and take.

    we must be willing to hone our relationship building skills. We must be great listeners. We must be willing to give before we receive. We must get into networking mode in our own minds before we ask the same of others. This must be constant.

    Through consistent contact with others, you will, instinctively start to put 2 and 2 together. When you begin speaking with someone your mind will automatically start searching the inner most recesses of your brain to remember people, places, even products, that will assist the person you are networking for and, at the same time, you will also be thinking of what they can do for you in return.

    This Is Networking.

    This is the state of mind you should be in whenever you are talking to someone in your industry, to get your mind in this state takes a while but, once you have focus and determination, you will immediately see how you can help others and, how they can benefit you in return whilst listening to them. this is the first step in getting them to help you.

    Networking, as its name would suggest is WORK, hard work, the process is also a learned skill, its not something that we are all born with or, can all do. It can often be frustrating when you have a goal in mind but, your networking functions are not achieving that goal. All in all, networking is the building block of many a business venture, it can make and it can break you. Take some time to consider this fact the next time you are posting on a board or go to one of the tradeshows, you might just come away with more than you hoped for.

    Article Written By Lee

  • Thinking Of Starting An Adult Website In The UK?

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

    We all know that there are many foreign / international adult webmasters and there are some very well known ones based in England however, before you start building your online empire what are the legalities regarding the type of content you can and cant use on your adult pornographic sites?

    To be honest with you, there are no ‘defined’ laws in England (At the time of writing this article) regarding the use of online media to promote adult activities however, it is a commonly held belief that as long as you stay to the same standard as what most ‘top shelf magazines’ or ‘R18 Videos’ have in them you shouldn’t go far wrong.

    So what are these standards? That’s the information that I am about to give you.

    Content that IS NOT acceptable.

    1) Any material which is in breach of the criminal law.

    2) Material (including dialogue) likely to encourage an interest in abusive sexual activity (e.g., pedophilia, incest) which may include depictions involving adults role-playing as non-adults.

    3) The portrayal of any sexual activity, whether real or simulated, which involves lack of consent.

    4) The infliction of pain or physical harm, real or (in a sexual context) simulated. Some allowance may be made for mild consensual activity.

    5) Any sexual threats or humiliation which do not form part of a clearly consenting role-playing game.

    6) The use of any form of physical restraint which prevents participants from withdrawing consent, for example, ball gags.

    7) Penetration by any object likely to cause actual harm or associated with violence.

    8) Activity which is degrading or dehumanizing (examples include the portrayal of bestiality, necrophilia, defecation, urolagnia).

    As you can see from the above, there ARE very specific guidelines regarding water sports, animality and, some of the more ‘out there’ fetishes.

    Now you know what you cant use on your adult sites, lets take a look at the list of sexual activities that you can use. Its no surprise that the list of what you can use is considerably shorter.

    Content that MAY BE acceptable.

    1) Aroused genitalia.

    2) Masturbation.

    3) Oral-genital contact including kissing, licking and sucking.

    4) Penetration by finger, penis, tongue, vibrator or dildo.

    5) Non-harmful fetish material.

    6) Group sexual activity.

    7) Ejaculation and semen.

    It also worth noting that the above guidelines are not distinguished between heterosexual or homosexual activities.

    So, that’s the low down on what the current status of affairs are with regards to the use of adult content on websites in England and Wales. Actually, that’s not to bad just ensure that you stay within these guidelines and, more importantly, that you do consult a solicitor before commencing any form of adult business after all, that’s what they are there for, to give you SOUND legal advice instead of basic ‘guidelines’.

    Article written by Lee

  • Doorway Pages

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Traffic, WebDesign | Response: 0

    A doorway page is built to rank high for a particular keyword or search phrase. When your doorway page is visited by the searcher it simply has a “click me” button which links to your web site. The major search engines accept these pages as long as the end result does provide what the searcher is looking for. If you are discovered to be using doorway pages for irrelevant keywords you can expect to have your entire domain unlisted. For instance, one of our doorway pages is built to rank high for the search term -Adult Content—which is quite acceptable because when the searcher gets here he can find links to adult content providers from our site. If however, he couldn’t find links to adult content then we would risk the wrath of the all powerful search engines.

    Once you have selected your keywords and phrases (about 50 would be the normal) you need to build a doorway page for each keyword and ideally, for each major search engine. All the major engines look for different keyword density in the text, title and description so you need to do some research by doing a search using your chosen phrase or keyword and studying the top 10 results at each engine (if you can spot them, study high ranking doorway pages).

    Make notes of how many times the phrase or keyword is used in the title, description and body text. Is it used in header text etc? Once you have built a picture of what your doorway page should look like you can build it using your favorite html editor. Once you have done one for a particular engine the other 50 or so pages can be done by simply replacing keywords for keywords. After you have done a page for each keyword move on to the next search engine. Remember that your body text is not important but make each page unique or it may be considered spamming. It is your keyword or phrase density that you are attempting to get right. The page, when visited by a person, will be recognized for what it is, simply a link to the real content so don’t worry too much about what it looks like. When a search engine spider visits the page it is only interested in counting the keyword density in your body text.

    As you have probably worked out there is quite a lot of work involved. 50 phrases or keywords=50 pages X the top 8 search engines= 400 pages. In reality though, you are only creating 8 doorways, 1 page for each search engine. For all the other pages you simply have to substitute the keyword for the next and alter the text around so as not to finish with 50 identical pages. OK, nearly finished but the next step is crucial if your doorways are to work.

    Put all your pages in a folder on your server e.g. Mydomain/doorways/. Then create 2 more pages that have a link and a small description to each of your doorways (200 on each) and to each other. These are called corridor pages because the spider travels down them, visiting each page linked off them. Call these 2 pages index and home and place them in the folder with your doorway pages. Then place links to these two pages from your main index page so that a spider will be able to find them and list all your doorways. Submit only your index page and your 2 corridor pages. Do not submit your doorways to the engines.

    Ideally, and if you can afford it, you should set up a new domain and host for your doorways. This isn’t essential but it does have benefits. These are: If you do get over zealous with your doorways and an engine does ban you for spamdexing at least your real site will be safe. Engines rank sites higher if they have lots of links to them from other domains. You can put your most important keywords in your new domain name, which will increase the ranking of the doorway pages containing those keywords.

    Now all you have to do is wait for the engines to update their databases. We have had the best results with Google.

    Article written by Lee

  • Filtering Adult Traffic For More Sales

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    When webmasters build sites there seems to be the train of thought that just because they use one of the top converting sponsors site they will make sales regardless of what type of traffic they are sending.

    Unfortunately, this is often not true.

    One of the first steps that we should take as webmasters when it comes to creating a new site, whether it be a free, avs or a TGP site is to learn the art of targeting our sponsors tour with the content and, more importantly, the traffic we are going to use.

    taking it to the simplistic levels, a straight teen sponsors wont convert on a site that gets mostly mature traffic, the niches, although complementary, are so far apart its unrealistic.

    That said, lets take a look at some options we can all implement on our sites to better target and filter our traffic to ensure optimum conversions.

    One of the simplest ways to target and filter your traffic is to build yourself a hub or a surfer trap. Of course, we also have to take into consideration the type of traffic we are currently receiving to our site and, that we ‘could’ receive in the future.

    Just because we receive 10,000 hits to our teen TGP doesn’t mean that ALL of that traffic IS looking for a teen site, this is where our surfer trap or hub site can come into play.

    Even if your main focus is the teen niche, you should make sure that the first thing the surfer see’s when visiting any type of site you build is a multi-site FPA (Full Page Ad) where applicable.

    This then starts your filtering process. If they know that they can find other niches than teen on your TGP then chances are, they will go to them either because that is what their niche is or, they are curious about that niche.

    Another thing we can do as webmasters is to ensure we use the headers and footers of our pages in the proper fashion, offer our surfers a choice of the main niches, Asian, Gay, Ebony, Teen, Ect using only text links and, you will probably find that by lining these text links to your hub or surfer trap that you actually have a diverse range of traffic available to you.

    In addition, rather than sending our surfers directly to our sponsors, send them via a filter page whether this is an FPA, or a page full of text links you made yourself detailing the benefits of the sponsor you are going to send them to, again, you will let the surfer know where they are going and, give them a choice as to whether they want to continue to that site or, choose an alternative.

    Overall, webmasters who target their surfers by niche can, for the most part have some excellent sales with a variety of sponsors that otherwise they would not be able to see.

    Target, Filter, Micro-Niche, however you do it, make sure your traffic is not wasted and, more importantly, make sure your sponsor is able to offer your surfer what you are telling them is inside the site.

    Article written by Lee

  • Cascading Style Sheet Basics

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) have been around for a while now, and act as a complement to plain old HTML files.

    Style sheets allow a developer to separate HTML code from formatting rules and styles. It seems like many HTML beginners’ under-estimate the power and flexibility of the style sheet. In this article, I’m going to describe what cascading style sheets are, their benefits, and two ways to implement them.

    Cascading What’s?

    They’re what chalk is to cheese, what ice-cream is to Jell-O they complement HTML and allow us to define the style (look and feel) for our entire site in just one file!

    They get their name from the fact that each different style declaration can be “cascaded” under the one above it, forming a parent-child relationship between the styles.

    They were quickly standardized, and both Internet Explorer and Netscape built their latest browser releases to match the CSS standard (or, to match it as closely as they could).

    So, you’re still wondering what a style sheet is? A style sheet is a free-flowing document that can either be referenced by, or included into a HTML document (Kind of like using SSI to call a file but not, if that makes sense). Style sheets use blocks of formatted code to define styles for existing HTML elements, or new styles, called ‘classes’.

    Style sheets can be used to change the height of some text, to change the background color of a page, to set the default border color of a table the list goes on and on. Put simply though, style sheets are used to set the formatting, color scheme and style of an HTML page.

    Style sheets should really be used instead of the standard , < b >, < i > and < u > tags because:

    One style sheet can be referenced from many pages, meaning that each file is kept to a minimum size and only requires only extra line to load the external style sheet file

    If you ever need to change any part of your sites look/feel, it can be done quickly and only needs to be done in one place: the style sheet and furthermore, it is done globally.

    With cascading style sheets, there are many page attributes that simply cannot be set without them: individual tags can have different background colors, borders, indents, shadows, etc.

    Style sheets can either be inline (included as part of a HTML document), or, referenced externally (Contained in a separate file and referenced from the HTML document). Inline style sheets are contained wholly within a HTML document and will only change the look and layout of that HTML file.

    Open your favorite text editor and enter the following code. Save the file as styles.html and open it in your browser:

    Cascading Style Sheet Example.

    h1
    {
    color: #636594;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt;
    }

    This is one big H1 tag!

    When you fire up your browser, you should see the text “This is one big H1 tag!” in a large, blue Verdana font face.

    Let’s step through the style code step by step. Firstly, we have a pretty standard HTML header. The page starts with the tag followed by the tag. Next, we use a standard tag to set the title of the page we are working with.

    Notice, though, that before the tag is closed, we have our tag, its contents, and then the closing tag.

    h1
    {
    color: #636594;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt;
    }

    When you add the style sheet code inline (as part of the HTML document), it must be bound by and tags respectively. Our example is working with the tag. We are changing three attributes of the ’s style: the text color (color), the font that any tags on the page will be displayed in (font-family), and lastly, the size of the font (size).

    The code between the { and } are known as the attributes. Our sample code has three. Try changing the hexadecimal value of the color attribute to #A00808 and then save and refresh the page. You should see the same text, just colored red instead of blue.

    An Example Of An External Style Sheet.

    External style sheets are similar to internal style sheets, however, they are stripped of the and tags, and need to be referenced from another HTML file to be used.

    Create a new file called “whatever.css” and enter the following code into it:

    h1
    {
    color: #a00808;
    font-family: Verdana;
    size: 18pt
    }

    Next, create a HTML file and name it test.html. Enter the following code into test.html:

    External Style Sheet Reference Example.

    This is one big H1 tag!

    As mentioned above, you can see that the actual code in whatever.css is exactly the same as it was in the inline example. In our HTML file, we simply place a tag in the section of our page. The rel=”stylesheet” attribute tells the browser that the link to the external file is a style sheet. The type=”text/css” attribute tells the browser that whatever.css is a text file containing CSS (cascading style sheet) declarations. Lastly, the href=”whatever.css” attribute tells the browser that the actual file we want to load is whatever.css.

    Conclusion.

    Well, there you have it, a quick look at style sheets and how to implement both an inline and external version. Checkout the links below if you’ve never worked with cascading style sheets before. You will be surprised at some of the things you can do with them!

    Article written by Lee.

  • Community Forum Scripts

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Scripts | Response: 0

    Whether you have little or much traffic one thing that will enable you to benefit greater form this traffic is giving your surfers the sense that they are part of a ‘community’ much like the message boards built around adult webmasters have the feel of a community to them your surfers will end up staying around a lot longer if you can give them a reason to come back to your site over anyone else’s.

    That said, one of the main factors in starting your own little porn community is the need to have a place where all the ‘action’ take place. What better way than you own message forum.

    However, we hit our first problem, having never thought about starting a forum up before you wouldn’t know where to go to look for scripts or, what the best one is. That’s the reason behind this little guide.

    Below you will find a short breakdown of the more commonly used message forum scripts along with a short list of features each one has to offer you when choosing to build your own online community.

    VBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com

    This is actually quite a good forum script, most of the main forums on the web use either VBulletin or PhpBB when it comes to threaded forums. VBulletin uses MySQL and .php to run the actual forum and, set-up of it can become a little tricky if you want to customize it to your exact needs and color scheme. That said, once you overcome the initial complications in setting the forum script up it is easy to handle and, with a price tag of only $160.00 its an affordable option for many.

    Ultimate Bulletin Board http://www.infopop.com

    Unlike VBulletin UBB uses Perl programming for the forum script which, means you can install it on any cgi enabled host. However, the one main drawback with this script is that it uses flat text files to store all the data which, can sometimes bog down your server with unnecessary file calls. The cost of $199.00 however can be a bit to expensive for most webmasters.

    Ikon Board http://www.ikonboard.com

    Ikon board is a nice little threaded forum script and, the fact that it is free to download makes it even more so however, even though it uses MySQL for the backend or, choose to store your data in flat text files this script just seems a little to ‘basic’ looking for my personal taste. That said, there are many types of site using IkonBoard so the script must be good enough for them to be using it. Then again, maybe its the price tag of $0.00 that has made this a popular choice.

    PhpBB http://www.phpbb.com

    PhpBB is probably the most well known free forum script on the web today, its easy to customize (within reason) supports php and MySQL functions yet seems to offer nothing in return. The basics of a forum are there however, every webmaster and their closest friend seems to be using this script. The whole idea of building up a community is so that your site can stand out from the crowd, in my humble opinion, the script does what it is supposed to but, it doesn’t offer any redeeming qualities to your site.

    Site Net BBS http://www.focalmedia.net

    Sitenet BBS, formally known as Netboard, is probably one of the better Perl based forum scripts on the market, it price tag of $69.00 makes it an affordable choice for almost everyone and, the installation process itself is VERY simple to understand. The one drawback that i have found with this forum script however is that it stores the data in flat text file which actually slow the server down quite a lot making connections to the forum time-out on numerous occasions. However customization of the script is very easy using only HTML based templates you do not need any additional programming skills and, it has a nice interface with a few good features. For the price it is well worth a look. They also offer a freeware version however the links on the bottom of the forum become annoying after a while.

    In summary there are a lot of popular forum scripts available for webmasters to start using some are free other require payment ALL have a range of different functions available in them.

    Before looking at installing any of the scripts you should always try a demo first to see which one has the features and benefits you would like to offer your community members.

    If you can get your base community built up on a forum they enjoy using then all the rest of your marketing should pay off in dividends long term.

    Article written by Lee.

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