Hello

My site is currently using YaBB for it's forum, but it's SOOO SLOW on start up and creates a lot of server load. Server does not support PHP.

The site is for bass fisherman so I don't really need any sophisticated forum, it definitely could be simpler. Are there any nice free forums that have some dynamic capabilties but for the most part just generates static pages? If the discussion board was made of static pages then it could be crawled by search engines... and make my rakings higher.

thanks

i dont know if this would help but...

www.phpBB.net is one of the best ive used. its free too. i love it.

I like the way phpBB looks when people use it

but, it's actually more dynamic/complex than Yabb, plus my server doesn't support PHP

on another forum somebody showed me TalkShop - I think I might give that a try

Have you considered a remotely hosted board?

I believe both ikonboard.com and invisionboard.com have that feature.

I don't want to pull people away from the site. Too risky. Hard enough keeping people in the site let alone coming back... forum is my sticky content so I need full control over it.

The TalkShop looks promising, it is a modified WWWBoard script.

Hi SagaLore,

If you are pretty confident that you will get at least 20 posts a day or so, I would switch to another host that does support PHP because all linear Perl boards (YaBB, Ikonboard, etc.) that I know of are resource hogs. PHP and ASP boards are much better in that aspect.

However, if you are pretty sure that you won't get that many posts each day, just stick with a threaded message board (WWWBoard). People complain that they are bad-looking. And I'll agree - they aren't exactly the most stylish. However, they are easy-to-use, and if your board isn't very popular, WWWBoard will, in a way, "hide" that fact. Because of that, they will attract more visitors and encourage users to post. And once you've built a strong user base from there, move on to a linear board. That's my suggestion to all boards starting out.

Since you are on a paid host, I would not recommend a remotely hosted board. However, if you were attempting to host your board on a free host, I would definitely recommend a free remotely hosted board. They are just so much more reliable than free webhosts in general.

If you afraid that you visitor will not return, why not setup another forum using another host that allows php?

You can than direct them to your new forum.

As already stated..... You could make another Host or Use a Remotely hosted script. I use a remotely hosted script and my members always come back!!

HGF Webmaster

Originally posted by SagaLore
my server doesn't support PHP

Thats too bad.. and the reason why your board is so slow and causing a load on the server is because it's probably using a flat file database?

As already stated.. just get a free host with php and link there