I have a travel site that I'm currently in the process of redeveloping its focus in excellent content and the current site is linked by some big players. The site would be Ad/link supported. Not a get rich scheme but a solid content site that has value to travelers and shows stunning pictures.

The budget for development is very small and I'm pulling every string I can to make it happen.

My question is to everyone who reads this is.

If you had a limited budget and wanted to develop a Database driven website that was search friendly and easy to maintain what software would you use? Is there any opensource that would be a good starting point (i've looked a phpnuke) not sure if it will work. Or do you think that I need to purchase something off the shelf like Ektron?

Thanks for any advice,

so.......
if you have a time and want to do your site yourself and spend a lot of time to study and developping and finally get your goal and control it all time by yourself .....

best way CSM opensource and I can advise you PHPNUKE.... very big online community....

otherwise .... pay to profi to do it for you ....... and dont spend time for that ... concentrate on business issue.....

If you had a limited budget and wanted to develop a Database driven website that was search friendly and easy to maintain what software would you use? Is there any opensource that would be a good starting point (i've looked a phpnuke) not sure if it will work. Or do you think that I need to purchase something off the shelf like Ektron?

I'd build it myself from scratch.

Off-the-shelf software has a tendency not to fit the sites it's used on (especially PHPNuke) and, because it's commonly used, is more likely to be targeted by those with malicious intentions.

So...my suggestion would be to do it yourself if you can. It'll be your code, your database, your site, and everything will be custom-fitted.

PHPnuke has a very bad reputation on itself for being both buggy and insecure. Thats the fallback of using opensource solutions, the whole world has access to its code, so it has to have some quality in it.

I would recommend Joomla without hesitating as a ready-to-go CMS solution.

If you have alot of time on your hand however and you really wanna make the whole thing yourself, i'd take up knowledge on PHP and MySQL.

"Thats the fallback of using opensource solutions"

If you trust straight after download anything you buy or get for free then your asking for bother. Myself I feel much more secure knowing I can inspect the code and scan it for exploitable areas.

A purchased solution does not do this and you only find its exploitable when A, its been exploited or B, your informed of an upgrade that will cost you more £££. (and thats normally after a delay where open source is addressed ASAP)

Paragraphs of examples and comparisons ommited for my own sake.


Ibbo