Need To Move Active Forum

[egeekiel]

Hi. I am in the process of downsizing. Once upon a time, way back in the late 90s early double 00's, I ran a domain hosting company. I am now semi retired and have no interest in keeping that hosting company around. Everyone , as in all customers I did have, have moved on and its time for me to do the same. The ONLY thing I am concerned with is having a place to host my forum with 3000+ members. It is currently located on my own server that I lease through Codero and I simply am looking at much cheaper alternatives as i currently and paying over 100 a month to host no more than 5-10 domains all my own. Most are just forwarded or aliased domains even then.


I am not looking for free hosting as I do want to have some control over advertisers etc. but I do not wish to be bothered with spam bots or other things I have perfected getting rid of in the past 15 years of this forum's creation. I am not opposed to paying 20 or 30 a month for privacy and the ability to run the extensions and add ons I we use within the forum.

[size=78%]The forum needs privacy as we are currently an invite only or ask for membership private secure forum with SSL and over 3000+ registered members although as of late visitation is WAY down. I have had the forum since 2006 and I just hate to get rid of it as it does help so many people, myself included.. I am even considering encryption in the [/size]future[size=78%] IF that is a possibility. [/size]


 I am running SMF version 2.0.15 and would upgrade to 2.01 once I am up and running on any new server or hosting location I move the forum to.


So I need to have the ability to move the forum, the domain names , the database etc. (I do have a second aliased domain name BUT its not necessary)


Once the forum is moved along with its database and once I see its working properly, I would then upgrade the forum to the latest SMF version.


Will all of this work and once I do move am I allowed to sell advertising or no? Or does your model offer advertising whereby the forum owner gets a share of any paid ads or click throughs?


These are things I am concerned with. I need a place to house teh forum, to have access to the MySQL database and the forums code itself for editing and all of this without worrying about sluggishness or speed loss during any heavy peak usage periods. I think the MOST members we have ever had online in 15+ years has been less than 100. Normally there may be 10 people using teh forum at any singular time. Like i said membership is up BUT visits are way down. People get complacent until there are issues and then teh forum gets busy again. It comes and goes in spurts. But its the type of forum that truly does save lives and helps people immensely. Lots of information and like minded folks. And that is why I cannot just dump it. It is very useful.


Thanks for your time. I am hoping to find a new home for the forum as i believe with all of my heart its a necessary place for people to visit. People with particular issues and problems and just people looking for real no BS honest information.


Mike

[SMFNew]

Hello Mike.
To run and manage your own advertisement requires the ultimate plan which is at 19.95 a month
We do allow parking custom domain  names.  SSL is extra though if using your own custom domain.
We could import the existing board into our system. We run a modified version of SMF 2.0.x


Limitations:
There is no access to the site files. We use one set of files for all hosted boards.
No database access.
You can't install your own mods/themes.


I highly suggest you signup for a free board here first to explore to see what is offered.




If you need mysql/database access that I would look into getting a vps hosting account which would give you full control if you are conformable without a control panel.