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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
 Posted - 10 September 2009 : 16:22:06
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I'm trying to figure out what path I'm going to take for my next web project. I am familiar with Snitz as an end user, and I like a lot of what it offers, however, I'm not sure if it will be right for me. Your answers/guideance is appreciated:
First, here's my goal: I intend to revamp my current retail site, and add a substantial social networking site. Not a dating site, but a place similar to facebook, etc. to complement my existing and future content.
Features I'll want: Groups! with group forum, group calander, etc.; general forums, categorization/search of groups, Who's online now (by user name), and various other bells and whistles of lesser importance such as blog/wiki, etc. UPWARD limitations/scalability are a big factor. Lastly, I want the script myself, rather than a shared hosting solution.
Here's why I want to use a free solution like Snitz: 1) Cost obviously. 2) I want access to the code so I can make modifications and intergrate it into the rest of my site. The authentication/password system is of particular interest.
Lastly, I have access to Windows based system, Sql Server, and also My SQL, php, asp, asp.net. I'm far more comfortable working with ASP (and some of my site is already using it). This factors into my decisions.
SO here's my choices:
1) Snitz
2) PHPBB
3) Some more integrated existing social networking platform based on PHP.
ADVANTAGES:
SNITZ: ASP I'm already comfortable with, simple, "clean" design - easy to work into my site, helpful support team/forums/staff with mods.
PHPBB: Many better features, more complex design, but easy to work into my site assuming I don't have to learn PHP to do it, helpful support team/forums/staff with mods.
PHP Integrated solution: All/most of the features I want in one package. Probably requires shared advertising space.
DISADVANTAGES:
SNITZ: fewer features, requires mods to get the social networking tools, not geared toward social networking, possible upward limitations with code. Mods by nature are not a great way to work without solid programming experience due to base code upgrades (which may outdate the mod).
PHPBB: I have to learn PHP in order to intergrate mods. I'd likely have to learn PHP in order to integrate my site and future additions of my own content/site. Mods by nature are not a great way to work without solid programming experience due to base code upgrades (which may outdate the mod).
PHP Integrated social network system: I would have far less control over the design/features beyond that in the package itself. I'd have to learn PHP.
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 16:26:47
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Here's some questions directed at Snitz, that will help me to answer my questions:
1) Besides mods, what is in the future for Snitz?
A) Are user groups in the works, and group based sub forums?
B) Are who's online features in the works (this is crucial to add to grouping for social networking)?
C) Is private messaging (in-system) in the works?
2) What is Snitz's current limitations:
A) Does Snitz do page caching or other tricks for optimizing server load?
B) Are Snitz resulting pages search engine friendly (URL, etc.)?
C) What is the upward limitations of Snitz on SQL Server? Can it handle massive forum usage?
D) Are these in the works? |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 16:31:24
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For the record, if Snitz were able to accomplish what I want, I'd be much more inclined to lean that direction. I'd be particularly happy if Snitz were working in that direction (categorized user groups). But I'm concerned that the user grouping features are a bit of a stretch with the existing code (doable, but would have higher server load due to ineffiecient code needed to make it turn into a social network base).
My time-frame for this project is further out, so I don't need to decide right now. However, if I need to learn PHP, I want to begin that process as soon as possible. |
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ruirib
Snitz Forums Admin
Portugal
26364 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 17:00:02
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Hi,
Code for 1. A, B and C are available as mods (well there is a user groups mod, not sure how it works with subforums)
2. A. Snitz doesn't use page caching or other stuff to optimize server load.
B. Not sure what you mean, I am no SEO expert
C. To handle big usage, Snitz would probable require some modifications. We have a user who gets to 25,000 members online and he has used some tools optimized for SQL Server.
Not sure at all about what will happen with Snitz. I would offer development has not been very strong and have nothing to conclude that will change in the near future, to be honest. |
Snitz 3.4 Readme | Like the support? Support Snitz too |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 20:02:25
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quote:
Originally posted by ruirib
Hi,
Code for 1. A, B and C are available as mods (well there is a user groups mod, not sure how it works with subforums)
2. A. Snitz doesn't use page caching or other stuff to optimize server load.
B. Not sure what you mean, I am no SEO expert
C. To handle big usage, Snitz would probable require some modifications. We have a user who gets to 25,000 members online and he has used some tools optimized for SQL Server.
Not sure at all about what will happen with Snitz. I would offer development has not been very strong and have nothing to conclude that will change in the near future, to be honest.
Thank you for the answers - that was helpful...
A) I've seen the who's online mod (in use) (the Australian motorcycle site has a nice setup for example), and that looks solid, and would fit my needs fine. It is one of the base functions needed to run the user groups properly.
B) Do you (or anyone) know the most stable mod for groups on the current Snitz version, and/or preferably a working example. I'd love to see how it is implemented. That may help answer some of my questions right off the bat. I have a preliminary outlined method to make user groups (with sub forums, add as friend, etc.) work with Snitz that doesn't require a ton of hard coding if I go down that path. Categorization of groups isn't too hard to do, but I'd like to see what is already in place. Obviously Snitz wasn't designed with this in mind, but it definitely could be a natural extension.
C) Could you (or someone else) provide a link to Snitz a/the user(s) with a huge amount of users. It would give me something of a baseline to look at. I expect to have a fairly sizeable community in a relatively short amount of time (once I set it up and give it time to mature), and I need to factor that into my decision making.
Regarding Search engine optimization (I'm no expert either): Beyond the metatages, my understanding is a lot of search engines ignore, or are incapable of the following:
1) Spidering into a database.
2) Spidering on a URL that contains ? or & signs in it.
One way to overcome that is page caching, and using Search Engine friendly URL's (that don't contain ? or &). This can be done a few ways such as page caching, generating static asp/html pages, and altering the URL structure, and some other tricks I don't know about using XML, etc..
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ruirib
Snitz Forums Admin
Portugal
26364 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 20:50:13
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There is only one user groups mod, coded by Nikkol. Think it shows on this forum as a beta version.
I don't know the specific URLs to busy forums, maybe someone else will post some here.
Again, maybe someone else will chime in on the SEO thing. |
Snitz 3.4 Readme | Like the support? Support Snitz too |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10 September 2009 : 21:48:53
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quote:
Originally posted by ruirib
There is only one user groups mod, coded by Nikkol. Think it shows on this forum as a beta version.
Thank you for the info on the mod, etc. - I'll have a look. |
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Cliff
Average Member
United States
501 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 07:18:37
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| If you are considering using something other than Snitz, there are other free ones available than phpBB, like SMF (http://simplemachines.org/). There are also low cost options that are even better and offer a lot of what you are looking for such as vBulletin and IPB. Here's a neat site to take a look at and compare many options. http://www.forummatrix.org/ |
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HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20584 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 08:00:09
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quote:
my understanding is a lot of search engines ignore, or are incapable of the following:
1) Spidering into a database.
2) Spidering on a URL that contains ? or & signs in it.
1) you wouldn't want them to be spidering into your db, search engines spider web pages not database.
2) take a look at google, how many of the results do not contain ? and & (not sure where you got that info from)
there are things you can do to improve SEO, but there are plenty of snitz forum topics indexed on google to indicate that even a default setup is getting searched.
There is a .net version in development (slow at the moment I'm afraid as I am very busy at work) which may be a lot easire to tune to your needs, it uses .nets built in membership so supports roles which may be useful for doing usergrouping without much effort. |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 15:41:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Cliff
If you are considering using something other than Snitz, there are other free ones available than phpBB, like SMF (http://simplemachines.org/). There are also low cost options that are even better and offer a lot of what you are looking for such as vBulletin and IPB. Here's a neat site to take a look at and compare many options. http://www.forummatrix.org/
Thank you for the tips...
Both were very helpful. I've done quite a bit of comparison recently, but hadn't come across simplemachines. That one is really solid, and the forummatrix will certainly help. |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 16:07:31
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quote:
Originally posted by HuwR
quote:
my understanding is a lot of search engines ignore, or are incapable of the following:
1) Spidering into a database.
2) Spidering on a URL that contains ? or & signs in it.
1) you wouldn't want them to be spidering into your db, search engines spider web pages not database.
2) take a look at google, how many of the results do not contain ? and & (not sure where you got that info from)
there are things you can do to improve SEO, but there are plenty of snitz forum topics indexed on google to indicate that even a default setup is getting searched.
There is a .net version in development (slow at the moment I'm afraid as I am very busy at work) which may be a lot easire to tune to your needs, it uses .nets built in membership so supports roles which may be useful for doing usergrouping without much effort.
.net is very appealing to me. There's not a lot of freeware/shareware solutions for quality social networking/forums in .net yet. .Net would be my solution of choice.
Thanks for the info on the spidering.
1) I should have spelled it out more clearly, but when I said spidering into a database, I meant having a database auto output chunks of its content into a spiderable format. For example, I have a retail site with a sizeable inventory. As such, I have a system that produces "static" inventory pages for each piece of inventory, alongside a dynamic navigation system for the spiders to crawl (as well as dramatically reducing calls to the database). Page caching tricks can provide similar results by producing static pages on the fly as needed based on time (thus eliminating a lot of database load).
2) I've read the ?/& URL thing in numerous places (mostly around a year ago, but I still see it regularly today). Google changes its spidering formulas often, so this may no longer be pertainent to Google spidering anymore. A lot of the competing forum (and other) applications still promote search engine friendly URL's as a feature of their software, and mods exist to alter the URL to hide the ? info. I believe some search engines crawlers used to/may still ignore anything after the ?. So, the base page would be searched, but anything after the ? was ignored. Not sure if this is still a problem at the moment for the big spiders. |
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HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20584 Posts |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
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j22
Starting Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 17:34:57
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Thanks to one of the posters, I did find one asp.net solution that looks pretty solid, and should be quick to incorporate if I go that way.
If I were to go php, I really like the simplemachines solution at this point as the top php candidate for my needs so far.
However, I generally like asp.net as the top candidate, because:
1) My asp pages are more easily conveted to asp.net.
2) I don't have to learn php.
3) It takes advantage of Sql Server.
4) Based on the performance I've seen, an optimized asp.net setup on Sql Server tends to be much faster than a php/apache/mysql setup.
5) In theory, we should be seeing more future open source material as asp.net matures/grows (such as Snitz asp.net.
The only drawback, is I have to learn rolls/permissions structure in ASP.net in order to incorporate any coding changes I want to make like integrating login features site wide, etc. But that seems to be a shorter learning curve than learning php from scratch.
Thanks again for all the help so far folks  |
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
Posted - 11 September 2009 : 18:54:43
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quote:
Originally posted by ruirib
There is only one user groups mod, coded by Nikkol. Think it shows on this forum as a beta version.
I don't know the specific URLs to busy forums, maybe someone else will post some here.
Again, maybe someone else will chime in on the SEO thing.
www.sqlteam.com is pretty busy
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Doug G
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Computer history and help at www.dougscode.com |
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ruirib
Snitz Forums Admin
Portugal
26364 Posts |
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Should I use Snitz?
