For new users, free phpBB hosting is one solution, However you must consider what sort of expectations you have. Hidden opportunity costs are an important thing to remember when searching for free phpBB forum hosting. Always do research before signing up with a hosting company.A free php forum hosting service will cost nothing, however many people who originally thought they wanted a free phpBB forum hosting provider change their mind after researching it. There are hosting companies that offer phpBB hosting for a few dollars a month.

Most free phpBB forum hosting services only support the database that runs the forum and do not act as a web host for your general web presence needs. Thus, if you need to host a website along with a phpBB forum, think about whether you need a low cost phpBB forum hosting solution rather than a free phpBB Forum hosting companies.

Usually, the reason why a company can offer free phpBB forum hosting in the first place is because they know a certain number of free customers will convert to paid customers. Often you have to transfer away from a free phpBB forum hosting companies because you exceed their limits, you will end up possibly paying an over charged fee and having to experience a forum outage while your website is transferred to a new hosting company.

In respect to the disadvantages of the free website forum hosting and as far as free website forum hosting is concerned, most of the users face unsatisfactory service when dealing with the free website forum hosts. In addition, free website forum hosts are also known as unreliable, and do not have the same software that paid customers receive.

Given that Linux web hosting has dropped sharply in the past year, you can now buy affordable phpBB forum hosting, obviously you would get more features than you would from strictly free phpBB forum hosting. In some cases these companies charge a fee for their hosting plan and then offer free phpBB forum hosting support with that plan.

There are many powerful features and tools available on forums that are relatively unknown to the average user. Also forum hosts will use contextual advertising such as Google Adsense to provide some form of income. Also Forum hosting is a way to support user-generated content. Finally forums are a great place for anyone looking to run an online discussion area for their hobby, gaming community or to discuss the latest news and events.

Mary Lewis For further information on web hosting please visit: http://www.pixelled-solutions.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Wynn_Lewis

Nothing promotes a business online better than staying in touch with prospects. The more interactive the continued contact, the more of a relationship that is built with a potential client.

This business principle of continued contact and business relationship building has given rise to the popularity of online business forums, and of course, "theme-related" online forums. Online forums quickly establish empathy, set forum owners up as "experts" in the eyes of visitors, and serve as a promotional vehicle for other products and services that forum owners seek to sell.

While online forums are popular and the perfect method of relationship building, starting a forum and maintaining one can be challenging, especially in the beginning when members can be "few" and "far between". The challenge for most new forum owners is to get beyond the initial start up phase and move onto a phase where the forum members themselves promote the forum simply by posting.

Although each forum is individual and personal, a few general guidelines should be followed or at least kept in mind when starting and maintaining an online forum. These are as follows:

1. Take care when choosing the type of forum and forum script or software that will be used. The forum should be easy to access, easy to use, and come with "visitor- friendly" features. All visitors should be made to feel welcomed and find the navigability of the forum, user friendly. Forum scripts and software, especially "free" varieties, may be overburdened with ads from the parent company and lead to a poor experience for visitors.

Some recommendations:

http://www.phpbb.com/ http://www.vbulletin.com/

2. The forum should have a good number of interesting and focused topics. The content should reflect the interests of the target audience, and every care should be made to have well-written and informative content that is updated regularly. This not only helps attract new members, it keeps older members from losing interest and defecting to other forums.

3. The forum should be Search Engine friendly. High activity forums, like popular blogs, provide a great reason for Search Engines to visit them frequently as they are brimming with fresh content all the while. Dynamic urls, session ids, etc. used by most forum software can be very detrimental to the forum health from Search Engine point of view.

When selecting a forum software, check if they are Search Engine friendly. Open source software like phpbb, have mods (modifications) developed by third party sources, to enhance the forum in many ways.

Here's a great mod for phpbb to make it Search Engine friendly: http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html

4. The forum needs to have a clear list of rules, a disclaimer, and most of all, good solid moderation. Visitors will quickly become frustrated with forums that have no clear guidelines, or feature rude, obnoxious, or overbearing members. Good manners are required as much online as offline.

5. Promotion, especially in the early days, will take considerable time and effort. Forums can be difficult to start (members generally are "shy" when there are only a few present), and the more posts that take place, the more individuals will join. This is a "snowball" effect of forums, so marketing must be done consistently, day in and day out, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining.

6. The owner of the forum should take an active interest in the forum and SHOW this interest by contributing regularly. Above all else, people join forums where they feel they will learn from the owner of the forum, and if the owner is never present, they quickly lose interest in the forum.

7. The forum should be targeted, yet diverse, encouraging older members to contribute, without making newer members feel uncomfortable. Cliques can form in forums, and this type of behavior should be discouraged by the owner and moderators. Every effort should be made to answer questions or comments by all members as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

8. As with all other Internet related ventures, care needs to be given as to hosting and maintenance of the forum. A forum that is always experiencing "downtime", will lose members quickly, and a forum that has many coding mistakes will quickly frustrate visitors. As with Web sites, "cheap" providers of hosting and maintenance are not always "better".

All in all, online forums can be a great way to generate income, develop a good reputation among clients, and provide entertainment and instruction for many individuals. Like with everything else, however, they take marketing savvy, and a great deal of time and attention to detail. The old saying, "You only reap what you sow" really applies to the world of online forums.

----------- Vishal P. Rao is the owner of Work at Home Forum, an online community of people who work from home. ----------- Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vishal_P._Rao

I mentioned in a previous article about all the ins and outs of using PHPBB2, an open source forum. Although it does have some quirks about it, the program is free and with a little help from the PHPBB community, not impossible to install even for the novice. The program you will upload, however, is fairly basic in nature therefore modifications [or, mods as some prefer to call them] can be useful to install. I have found several favorites that have worked rather well for me. Now, I am plan on sharing that information with you!

Chat – What forum isn’t complete without a chat room. PHPBB2, for one. Yes, you have to install one yourself but the IRQ chat add-on is certainly worth it and it works much better than some that I have seen on sites that contain this feature. EZBoard is one such site that comes to mind.

Who Is Online – As an administrator you already know who is online at any given time. Unfortunately, the “stock” version of this feature shows people who have been online only for the past five minutes. Fortunately, a mod has been developed that can extend this feature to fifteen minutes or later. Is this important? No, but it gives you a more accurate picture of what your real time traffic figures really are.

Google Ads – A special mod has been developed to permit you to run and display banner ads, much like Google’s AdSense. Hey, you want to make a little bit of money off of your site now don’t you?

Smilies – You do love emoticons, don’t you? Well even if you don’t, they can certainly spice up any forum. Lots of neat “paks” have been developed, some containing animated icons too. Especially nice to have around Yuletide for easy access to Christmas themed emoticons.

Disable Board Message – Being able to customize the message you have posted when your site is down is essential to clueing in your members as to the time when your forum will once again become activated. This mod does just that.

There are numerous other mods and styles from which you can choose. Some are easy to install while others are moderately so. A small group of mods are difficult to install and will take you well over one hour to complete. Choose your battles wisely and be careful when you install updates to PHPBB2. By not selecting a “patch” file update you can erase any modifications you made in just moments.

Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more. Samples from his portfolio are available right online. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Keegan