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shane
Member
Joined: 10 Sep 2007
Posts: 4
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# Posted: 10 Sep 2007 19:48
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Hi all,
I have some serious questions here
- Can anyone earn good amount of money by building and maintaining a forum...I mean the owner of the forum...
- If yes then how will they earn and what is the average amount they can earn per month....
- Also how much do they have to spend to create and maintain these forums....I know that these forums are created in php script...is it the only way that a forum can be made (using php)???
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opendomain
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Joined: 19 Aug 2007
Posts: 535
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# Posted: 10 Sep 2007 20:03
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check adsense and advertising. I hear Vishal is a millionaire.
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happywife
Joined: 14 Aug 2007
Posts: 1007
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# Posted: 10 Sep 2007 23:59
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I imagine you can earn from selling advertising on your forum. Of course, it would depend on the amount of forum visitors, etc. As always, the more traffic the more revenue.
However, I will admit that I have never actually clicked on an ad in a forum, so I don't know what the percentages would be of people who actually do. Generally, when I go to a forum it is to actually chat to the other forum members rather than looking for advertisement info.
I wonder...
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1022
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# Posted: 11 Sep 2007 08:03 · Edited by: Vishal P. Rao
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Quoting: opendomain I hear Vishal is a millionaire.
Hey where did you hear that!!! Even I would like to see  I'm far from being a millionaire at the moment and have no intentions too This forum pays for my bread and butter and as long as it keeps doing it, I'm happy and contented.
Having said that, creating a successful forum takes tremendous amount of effort and patience. If you are just starting out, I wouldn't recommend it. Well, if you already have a successful website, then you can start a forum side by side. And there is a good chance of it getting successful.
But then again, success of a forum depends on a lot of factors like quality of members, quality of postings and most importantly the owners Vision.
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opendomain
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Joined: 19 Aug 2007
Posts: 535
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# Posted: 11 Sep 2007 14:49
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Quoting: Vishal P. Rao But then again, success of a forum depends on a lot of factors like quality of members, quality of postings and most importantly the owners Vision.
Just out of curiosity Vishal, what is the VISION?... mean aside from you laying on a sandy beach somewhere in the future?
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pcwork
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Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Posts: 1633
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# Posted: 11 Sep 2007 17:36
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Compared to a content website, forums may less money, but then your users generate content for you.
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opendomain
Member
Joined: 19 Aug 2007
Posts: 535
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# Posted: 11 Sep 2007 19:04
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There has to be a way to get that to work for you...
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1022
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# Posted: 12 Sep 2007 02:16
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Quoting: opendomain Just out of curiosity Vishal, what is the VISION?... mean aside from you laying on a sandy beach somewhere in the future?
I meant your Vision of your forum. That ultimately will attract the kind of members and the content, which makes a forum a successful forum.
This story will make it clear...
Two guys John and Jim start forums on same topic. John is keen to get a jump start and he advertises his forum everywhere. He also doesn't care much about moderating the members and regulating the content, for he thinks, if he does so, user activity will be reduced and hence it'll take a long time for the forum to get busy.
Jim also is keen to get his forum busy but he also wants his forum to be the best in it's class. Therefore he spends much time in keeping spammers out and maintaining the quality of his forum. As a result, the user activity is much less compared to John's forum where spammers are keeping his forum very busy 
After a year, John had to shut down his forum as he could no longer handle the abuse by spammers.
Jim however has been seeing a steady growth and word has been spreading about the quality of his forum and members.
I hope you get the point.
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getagrip
Joined: 20 Feb 2006
Posts: 1639
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# Posted: 27 Sep 2007 20:23
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Basically, you can earn money with a forum, but don't expect it to "take off" overnight. It will take time to get traffic, rankings in Google, and a loyal following.
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1022
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2007 02:38
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Quoting: getagrip It will take time to get traffic, rankings in Google, and a loyal following.
Lot of time!
Not to discourage anyone but there were many many times when I contemplated ditching this forum. However, it turned out to be my savior and I thank god for that.
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danbu1
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Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 5
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# Posted: 28 Sep 2007 22:22
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I am still confused as how forums really make money. adsense? advertisements? Vishal, can you confirm?
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Dan Bui
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1022
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# Posted: 29 Sep 2007 00:53 · Edited by: Vishal P. Rao
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It all depends on the forum owner. Just like a regular website/blog, one can generate revenue from forums through multiple income streams - advertising, adsense, affiliate offers, pay-per-lead offers...
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Newbie Shield
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 1828
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# Posted: 29 Sep 2007 05:54
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shane,
Perhaps you would be more at peace if you didn't try to imagine the monetizing methods on a forum as different from those on a blog or a website.
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brookiel
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Joined: 6 Nov 2007
Posts: 8
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# Posted: 7 Feb 2008 19:23
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But the downfall of forums is the amount of spam that gets posted, and it can be very time consuming just deleting those messages from forums.
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brotherZ
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Joined: 19 Feb 2008
Posts: 5
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# Posted: 24 Feb 2008 17:19
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Quoting: shane - Can anyone earn good amount of money by building and maintaining a forum...I mean the owner of the forum... - If yes then how will they earn and what is the average amount they can earn per month.... - Also how much do they have to spend to create and maintain these forums....I know that these forums are created in php script...is it the only way that a forum can be made (using php)???
To answer your questions, you can make quite some money if you run a successful forum. Unfortunately, most forums don't quite get there and fail to attract a lot of members.
First, you have to get many people to join and post on your forum.
It's very easy to start a forum. There are plenty of free forum scripts like phpbb and some good paid ones like vBulletin.
You just need to pay for hosting and install a forum software.
Generating forum activity and getting members to join is the hardest part.
The way people make money is by selling ads, publishing PPC ads from Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher and other PPC programs, or selling affiliate products.
If your forum gets very popular, you can make tons of money.
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zeropoint
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Joined: 4 Mar 2008
Posts: 22
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2008 17:21
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It probably depends on the forum subject(s) as a boring subject would probably be really unpopular. You'd want to attract knowledgable posters as if everybody is a newbie it wouldn't work out of sheer ignorance.
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VictoriaNTC
Member
Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 436
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2008 18:28
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I was just asking myself the same question Shane..
I think it is definately worth looking into!
Or an article submission site! Then you can write and publish as you please...This is in my future plans..
Victoria
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ebale
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Joined: 26 Jun 2008
Posts: 10
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# Posted: 12 Jul 2008 14:06
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How difficult is it to start a forum? Technically speaking, I am pretty new to this kind of stuff!
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fatman
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Joined: 6 Jun 2008
Posts: 126
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# Posted: 12 Jul 2008 20:15
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Somebody just asked me in a PM about how to make a forum...and I didn't really know how to answer, lol.  I looked at some of the forums I use regularly and found links to the forum site builders. Vbulletin and Invision Power Board are popular ones, but it seems like they costs upwards of $150 in order to make a forum. There is another place I found called phpBB or something like that. I couldn't find a price on that one, so maybe it's free.
Not sure how much money you are willing to put into your forum, but I'm sure time and money=success. Time is another important thing since, as somebody above already said, it takes time to moderate forums and keep up with everything. Some forums have security measures to prevent robot spammers, but others don't. One forum I use for fun on a regular basis has this unfortunate problem. It is a fantastic forum, but usually gets several spammers a week that need to be deleted.
Like everyone else said, I'm not sure how much money you would make other than what you get through ads. I'm sure if you try hard though, you can do it. Good luck and keep us posted!
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 1022
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# Posted: 13 Jul 2008 00:18
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ebale: How difficult is it to start a forum? Technically speaking, I am pretty new to this kind of stuff!
Starting is no big deal. You can hire someone to do that for you and it'll be done in 5 minutes. The toughest job is to get the forum rolling. It can take even years to achieve a sustainable repeat traffic. But once it hits sufficient momentum, you can sit back and eat the fruits.
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genius
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Joined: 5 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
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# Posted: 5 Oct 2008 11:34
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Hi I am a new member and like this forum. As per topic, I have tried nearly all non paid forums and I am a web developer myself. Honestly speaking, SMF is the best in free open source forums. It is a little difficult to handle and setup as compared to phpbb but believe me, in the end you will not regret. It rules from every point of view, Security, Speed, Update and most of all SEO. If you are really serious to build a forum and don't want to invest much then go with SMF. On the other hand, if you can spend a little money the go with VB along with vbseo plugin. It is worth the price.
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glitch00
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Joined: 19 Aug 2008
Posts: 72
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# Posted: 6 Oct 2008 00:58 · Edited by: glitch00
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Building a forum is rather easy these days with all the web hosting options offering 1-click installs. Building a community takes time though and I gone through the experience of building one (not with money making in mind)
I've been a forum admin for over 3 years now in my community forum and all we do is just discuss and talk about anything. We don't have much luck with adsense really, so it really depends on what your forum is about. If your forum is about cars, your adsense will have ads pertaining to cars and if you have a big community base, you may be getting some hits out of that.
But keep in mind, as your forum starts to grow, you may be in a situation where you need to move to paid hosting to maintain the bandwidth. Some forums use the advertising to break even with the hosting costs.
So I guess you can earn some money by building a forum, but it's a long journey. Or you can try adding a donate button if you have a good fan base. Or after a long time, you can sell the forum. That is what I believe GetPaidForum is doing.
Good luck! As long as you have fun doing it, you'll love the results.
Forum Admin veterans can correct me if I'm wrong, this is just my perspective on things.
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BlueIce
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Joined: 14 Oct 2008
Posts: 23
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# Posted: 14 Oct 2008 05:13
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Never tried it myself.
However if you spent a lot of time promoting it and maintaining it alongside another job you may well in the end get enough interest to attract some decent advertising. From that it could then expand and start to make you some decent money.
But like everything it would take a lot of effort and commitment, would definately not be an overnight success story.
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