The First Domain of a Forum

Discussion in 'Domains, Hosting and Servers' started by Se7eN, Jun 3, 2011.

  1. Se7eN

    Se7eN Regular Member

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    Often, when you are making a forum*, your provider may give you a subdomain of their website; such as http://exampleforum.yourprovider.xxx When this is the case, do you keep it for a while then get your own domain? Or do you switch immediately after creating the forum? Why?

    I always stick around with the subdomain for a while. First off, I usually like to play around with the ACP a bit to see what is offered and see if I like it or not. Second of all, I don't want to spend money on a domain for a community that just fails. These are my reasons and I will always stick with them.

    *I am not sure about paid providers. I only know that most free ones give you a subdomain at first.
     
  2. Kaiser

    Kaiser Regular Member

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    Well if you are talking about free forum hosts most of the time you dont have a choice but to use the subdomain of the free forum host. But as for real hosting where you have complete control of everything you can either use your own domain, or use their sub-domain. And I always use my own TLD domain.
     
  3. Se7eN

    Se7eN Regular Member

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    Some free hosts (*cough* prophpBB) allow you to use a domain you already own, or buy one from the host.
     
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  4. Kaiser

    Kaiser Regular Member

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    Yes I know, as I said most of the time you dont have an option to use your own domain on freeforum hosts. As 90% of the hosts dont allow you to use your own domain. ProPhpBB, and a few other well known freeforum hosts allow you to. By the way a freeforum host, and a host are two different things.
     
  5. SpacewardAsh

    SpacewardAsh Lurking From Space

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    My first domains have always been sub-domains of my hosting provider, until I moved to ProphpBB and tried out a co.cc sub-domain, and later Advanced Hosting when I was offered a .net domain for EA
     
  6. Tierney

    Tierney Regular Member

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    I've learned that it is almost impossible to get any members unless you have a real TLD (like .com, NOT like .co.cc). In my opinion, you can't really get started unless you have a TLD, because you are impairing your growth if you don't have a TLD.
     
  7. SpacewardAsh

    SpacewardAsh Lurking From Space

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    my previous forum Entertainment Avenue (nicknamed EA for short) started on a co.cc domain and managed to achieve a good few thousand posts within the first few months before a TLD came along...
     
  8. Tierney

    Tierney Regular Member

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    Like I said, it's almost impossible to achieve success with a free domain. :laugh:
     
  9. Kaiser

    Kaiser Regular Member

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    Anything is possible, there are millions of forums doing just fine on free subdomains. But yes TLD's always help you reach success much faster.
     

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