| View previous topic :: View next topic |
confusedabit
Advanced Member
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
Location: USA
|
 Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:29 pm Post subject: Getting my own site and using the free boards? |
 |
|
|
Not sure where to have posted this. I am looking for some guidance and would appreciate any tips or suggestions. Here is what I want to do.
The URL to my free board is one that most members have trouble remembering easily. Also, it doesn't seem to be a site that can be easily found. I don't know much of the inner-workings of websites etc (as you can tell by my plentiful posts for help here--LOL) but, sort of figure stuff out on the fly.
So, how can I still keep my current free board but have it on a site with a much easier URL? Is that what is involved when folks ask for their "back-ups" here? Does this involve me getting a website of my own and somehow placing the free board within it? Are there any FREE websites or does one have to pay to register their own www.XYZ.com type site?
I have searched on google for "free site" and get buried in the results. Is what I am looking for called web hosting? If so, I see some list certain limits which I have no clue on what those limits translate to! I would not want to have visitors/members click on one day and see a message saying limits are used up for that month.
Forgive what may seem like obvious questions but, as I said, I have no experience in this. It is an accomplishment I got this far on the free boards here--LOL!! 
Thanks again! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Blackpanther
Advanced Member
Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 597
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Well there are a few ways you could go about this. One you could buy the backup and move your forum to another host, install the phpbb forum software and upload your forum there. But depending on how large your forum is you might not have enough space for it to be hosted somewhere free and taking care of the db would be messy.
Number two is you could get a short url from sites like www.shorturl.com or www.cjb.net and redirect it to your forum. Just type in "short url" into Google and you'll find about 104,000,000 results, just pick whatever offer sounds best. . |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Xyclops
Advanced Member
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 107
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
Or you could purchase a domain name of your choosing and set it up to redirect any visitors automatically to your forum here on mfbb. You don't have to rehost your database elsewhere if you are happy with the service here. You can just get the domain to redirect here.
The visitor could enter the URL:
http://www.XYZ.com
and their browser would automatically change to the harder to remember address here. e.g.:
http://www.mfbb.net/yourforumname
I used to do that when I had a forum here. I think you have to use normal forwarding rather than framed forwarding. That was certainly the case for PHPBB boards. I'm not sure about invision. It was something to do with cookies not working I think.
I'm not sure if all domain providers give free website forwarding. http://www.ukreg.com certainly does though, as I've purchased from them before. I'm not sure if they sell domains to people outside of the UK though. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
confusedabit
Advanced Member
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Thank you to both of you for your replies. I will take the time to look into what would work best--and for FREE-LOL! I am in the USA and my members have a rough time remembering the link to our site. And, I think it is keeping others from joining and/or finding the boards. I am looking for something simple (did I mention FREE??!) and that would be easy to work since, as I said, I am not that computer literate! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
confusedabit
Advanced Member
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I think I might try the FREE URL redirect method. I am at shorturl.com now and spent lots of time reading about it. Well, once I was all ready to go and entered my www.mfipb.com etc. link, I got this error message:
Your username contains an invalid character. You can only use letters, numbers, dashes and under_scores. Dashes can not be at the begining or end.
Your username can not contain a period.
You may use periods in your name after you create your account.
For example, if you register: bob.shorturl.com
you will be able to use: www.bob.shorturl.com or anyword.bob.shorturl.com
...which, I don't really understand since the entry box starts with the http:// part and the next thing after www is a period!! But, I suppose our mfipb board links have those periods, slash, equal sign and question mark included.
That's too bad since I actually found an extension I thought I would like... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Xyclops
Advanced Member
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 107
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| I'm not sure, but I'd guess that if the free site is redirecting using framed forwarding rather than normal forwarding. If the URL in the top of the browser doesn't change to the mfbb.net address then it probably won't work. From looking at the shorturl home page it looks like they give you two options for forwarding; masked and complete. I'm guessing you are using masked forwarding (which is what I mean by framed forwarding). Try using the normal path forwarding without masking. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Xyclops
Advanced Member
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 107
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you are saying. Is this error shorturl telling you that you typed in the URL wrong? What exactly did you type in? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Sands34
Advanced Member
Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 38
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
go here Invision Power Services google it for the URL its cost about $30 to get it set up since you have to regester your domain for 2 years the first time . once you have a name its very simple to work with like mine is wrs-squad.com its made things simple for us to get there . FREE is nice but not always good.
Thank You MFBB |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
