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› Hosting Forum For Sale 🔥
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Hosting Forum For Sale 🔥

edited October 2022 in General

Firesale 🔥 of assets for upcoming legal bills. Would you like a permanent, effective, & FREE way to advertise your hosting services? Then HostBoards.com is for sale for the best offer over 5K usd. HostBoards only generates profit from leasing the top & bottom banners which is insignificant so for this sale, consider that we're claiming no profit. It is recommended you add side banners & adsense to increase profit.

Online Since: April 2004
Total Views: 3M
Total Registered Users: 3.7M
Total Topics: 5.4K
Post Count: 29.6K
Software: Vanilla

HostBoards has had several names since our start in 2004:
DevDreams.com - lookup 2004 Archive.org
WebmasterPost.com - lookup 2006 Archive.org
HostBoards.com - lookup end of 2014 Archive.org
For several years after 2014, WebmasterPost & HostBoards operated concurrently.
In 2018, hostboards was hacked which destroyed several years of posts. It was resurrected on Vanilla Forums instead of vBulletin.

You will receive the forwarded domain WebmasterPost.com with the sale.

Comparisons

LowEndTalk.com is profitable & being the most active Webhosting forum in the world, would sell for well over $30,000 or more. Jon did that with hard work & if you put in the same hard work, you'll get similar results.

How to estimate value of HostBoards? I offered between 5K-10K for (a dead forum) vpsboard.com in 2020 but was rejected. They want over 10K for it.

I offered 5K for LowEndSpirit in 2021 but my offer was SOUNDLY rejected. Not saying LES is for sale but they would want a LOT more than 5K for it if they do accept an offer. Consider that LES will likely always be a copy-cat/reaction forum to LowEndTalk, Better to seek a forum with your own identity free from drama.

HostNamaste has 2 months left on a 6 month lease of the top banner (until 12/31/22) - must be respected. Footer Banner is open to be leased starting 11/1/22.

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Comments

  • BilohBucksBilohBucks Member
    edited October 2022

    Noone care about your shady forum advertised on LET.
    Let it die in peace.

    Online since 2004? Interesting.

    Thanked by 2yoursunny homelabber
  • has had several names

    Why?

  • edited October 2022

    @BilohBucks said:
    Online since 2004? Interesting.

    If you had read my 1st post above, this was already explained:
    Several Name changes since this forum's creation in 2004.
    Do an Archive.org lookup of our 1st name "DevDreams.com" as you can see here from April 2004:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20040410015247/http://www.devdreams.com/

    I bought this forum in 2006 & changed it's name to "WebmasterPost.com." I kept the creator's tutorials on the front page (just as he had done) of this vBulletin forum until many years later. You can see my initial changes here from 2006 in Archive.org:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20060809211724/http://www.webmasterpost.com/

    This is explained in the "Rules" page:
    https://hostboards.com/discussion/4331/rules

    @BilohBucks said:
    Your shady forum

    There is nothing shady about HostBoards.

  • edited October 2022

    @SteveMC said:

    has had several names

    Why?

    When I bought it in 2006, I didn't like "DevDreams" so i changed the name.

    There were so many Webmaster forums at that time, I later decided that it should be a specialized Hosting forum to differentiate it from the competition.

  • @Offshore_Solutions said:
    Blah blah blah

    Whole post is one big clickbait then. You can't say that it was active since 2004 when it was definitely other domain name.

    There is nothing shady about HostBoards.

    Indeed, copying everything from LET is not shady at all.

    Thanked by 1bulbasaur
  • JustHostJustHost Member, Patron Provider

    Because vpsboard.com rejected your offer does not really make good grounds for comparison since the owners may just not want to sell or want to be greedy. I personally would not pay near the top end of $1000 since most forums these days are dead in favor of discord or other social media platforms.

    Thanked by 1host_c
  • @henix said:
    Best i can do is $7

    $7.69

  • SGrafSGraf Member, Patron Provider

    In my experience, often the perceived value (by the owners) and real value does differ a lot. That is also the reason why you see quite a few "providers" disappear without finding someone to take over their operations.

    @Offshore_Solutions said:
    How to estimate value of HostBoards? I offered between 5K-10K for (a dead forum) vpsboard.com in 2020 but was rejected. They want over 10K for it.

    If they are not in need to sell, why would they? Unless you make them an offer that is hard to refuse... (ie: way over the actual value)

    I offered 5K for LowEndSpirit in 2021 but my offer was SOUNDLY rejected.

    I suspect you didnt get rejected because of the value. The LES Ownership change was not about finances, it was about the community and its spirit. (from what i remember there was no cost/expense associated with the ownership change....).

    @SWS said:
    Because vpsboard.com rejected your offer does not really make good grounds for comparison since the owners may just not want to sell or want to be greedy. I personally would not pay near the top end of $1000 since most forums these days are dead in favor of discord or other social media platforms.

    I'm with SWS on this, when it comes to forums. (wht, les,let are likely the exceptions to that statement).

  • edited October 2022

    @BilohBucks said:

    Indeed, copying everything from LET is not shady at all.

    There is zero material copied from LowEndTalk that I'm aware of. If you feel differently, please post your proof here in this thread.

    In 2020, an author who posted about Control panels on LowEndTalk was quoted on HostBoards without attribution. That's a mistake I apologized for & fixed within an hour. If you feel it's possible for people to never make mistakes, I can't help you.

  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    @henix said:
    Best i can do is $7

    $11

    I'll make it a redirect to push-ups.

    Thanked by 1Offshore_Solutions
  • Have you tryed at NamePros?
    https://www.namepros.com may be more suitable community for selling website/forum/domain.

  • SGrafSGraf Member, Patron Provider

    I have taken the time to go thru the first 10 pages of your content.

    Almost all of the content is advertisements. The amount of original/unique threads that are not advertisements and are not posted by (owner/staff) is almost non-existant.

    Without knowing the pricing for banners/ads (ie the revenue your forum generates), and the daily/monthly visitor numbers, my estimate would be considerably lower than your asking price.

    Furthermore from my perspective, its hard to distinguish (brand value) from other forums with similar names/domains such as as hostboard.com

    Thanked by 1Offshore_Solutions
  • edited October 2022

    @SGraf said:
    its hard to distinguish (brand value) from other forums with similar names/domains such as as hostboard.com

    Hostboard.com (not to be confused with HostBoards.com) is forum software similar to Vanilla Forums, vBulletin, Simple Machine Forum, & MyBB except that it's not open-source. You can use the "Hostboard" software on your server to create a forum. What you see on his page is the demonstration of what his software looks like, 99% of threads are empty placeholders.

    The owner told me this directly & he lists that information here:
    https://www.hostboard.com/forums/faq.php?faq=hostboard#faq_about_hostboard
    "Hostboard is a free service that provides a Web-based application that engages businesses and individuals to build, join and participate in a highly customized and personalized online community. Hostboard.com has no affiliation with any business(es), website(s) or individual(s) that have chosen Hostboard as its forum partner (host)."

  • YmpkerYmpker Member
    edited October 2022

    Even if there was no content copied from LET, there was content copied from the OGF.

    @SGraf said:
    I have taken the time to go thru the first 10 pages of your content.

    Almost all of the content is advertisements. The amount of original/unique threads that are not advertisements and are not posted by (owner/staff) is almost non-existant.

    That is because, previously, content was copied from the OGF until OP was asked kindly to stop doing so.

    @Offshore_Solutions said:

    @BilohBucks said:

    Indeed, copying everything from LET is not shady at all.

    There is zero material copied from LowEndTalk that I'm aware of. If you feel differently, please post your proof here in this thread.

    In 2020, an author who posted about Control panels on LowEndTalk was quoted on HostBoards without attribution. That's a mistake I apologized for & fixed within an hour. If you feel it's possible for people to never make mistakes, I can't help you.

    Unfortunately we both know it wasn't just one user whose content you copied. Maybe not from LET, but definitely from LES. Not one post, but multiple. Now, that you are trying to sell the sinking ship, the potential buyer should at least know as much.

  • I bet 12 american dollars.

  • @LTniger said:
    I bet 12 american dollars.

    Come on Lt35.50 litas should be the max!

    Thanked by 1Levi
  • upcoming legal bills. 🤣

    So OP decided to tilt at windmill. This will end well.

  • edited October 2022

    @Ympker said:
    Unfortunately we both know it wasn't just one user whose content you copied. Maybe not from LET, but definitely from LES. Not one post, but multiple. Now, that you are trying to sell the sinking ship, the potential buyer should at least know as much.

    BilohBucks had specifically mentioned copying from LowEndTalk which doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge.

    If you run a forum, you will see that you can't control others copying from sources without proper attribution. We can only clean up their mess once we find it.

    Last year the Moderator at LES made me aware of a few posts from one particular poster from LES (2 posts if memory serves). I agreed with the Moderator, deleted the posts, & banned the user that had posted.

    This isn't isolated to any one particular forum & I have no doubt it's an ongoing issue every forum will deal with.

  • @Offshore_Solutions said:

    @Ympker said:
    Unfortunately we both know it wasn't just one user whose content you copied. Maybe not from LET, but definitely from LES. Not one post, but multiple. Now, that you are trying to sell the sinking ship, the potential buyer should at least know as much.

    BilohBucks had specifically mentioned copying from LowEndTalk which doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge.

    If you run a forum, you will see that you can't control others copying from sources without proper attribution.

    If my memory is correct, the Moderator at LES made me aware of a few posts from one particular poster from LES. I agreed with the Moderator, deleted the posts, & banned the user that had posted.

    This isn't isolated to any one particular forum & I have no doubt it's an ongoing issue every forum will deal with. We can't control people, only clean up their mess.

    Fair point. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning this since the people who posted this were forum staff (/content writers) for your forum at that point in time iirc. I, too, remember that the posts were deleted by you after concerns were brought forward. Anyway, I'm glad you were able to get rid of those posts.

    The value of a forum, everyone would have to decide for themselves. It probably comes down to what you want to do with it (ads/build a community/profit/personal interest).

  • @Offshore_Solutions said:
    Online Since: April 2004
    Total Views: 3M
    Total Registered Users: 3.7M
    Total Topics: 5.4K
    Post Count: 29.6K
    Software: Vanilla

    A question, how you have 3.7M registered users but 3M total views ? it means some users registered without even viewing forum once ?!

  • Your figures make no sense. As mentioned above you have more registered users than views and 0.8% post rate (5.4k / 3.7M x 100)

  • edited October 2022

    @Ympker said:
    Fair point. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning this since the people who posted...(content writers) for your forum...

    You're memory is good, I hired content writes from LES but we got one bad apple.

    Didn't I also try to hire you from LES? You're a very good writer & my offer still stands. You only need to private message me with your requirements.

  • OF course there was tools which was used for "lil boost" here and there. Numbers no match? Who cares. So, who's betting? I understand this is ongoing, community decided auction and I with 12 dollars winning it. Like Charlie Sheen :)

  • $20 my bid

    Thanked by 1Offshore_Solutions
  • edited October 2022

    @patro said:

    @Offshore_Solutions said:
    Online Since: April 2004
    Total Views: 3M
    Total Registered Users: 3.7M
    Total Topics: 5.4K
    Post Count: 29.6K
    Software: Vanilla

    A question, how you have 3.7M registered users but 3M total views ? it means some users registered without even viewing forum once ?!

    Two things happened. In approximately 2018 we were hacked when running on vBulletin. 2 or 3 years of posts & their views were permanently deleted. The Hack didn't delete users.

    As mentioned in the 1st post, WebmasterPost & HostBoards were running concurrently (in 20014 Archive.org I think you'll see that both forums existed). When we combined both forums into one, I believe that doubled our users but only kept the number of views from the first forum.

    @mikewazar said:
    As mentioned above you have more registered users than views and 0.8% post rate (5.4k / 3.7M x 100)

    Please refer to my above answer to @patro

  • JustHostJustHost Member, Patron Provider

    $100

    Thanked by 1Offshore_Solutions
  • $101.69

    Thanked by 1Offshore_Solutions
  • On a serious note - 3.7m users?

    I'd actually be interested in buying it but the numbers seem a bit iffy

    I certainly wouldn't pay 5k but I'd make a reasonable offer depending upon the real figures

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    Thanked by 1chria838373
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