What do I need?

I currently have a website with a dragonfly cms on it. The community is about of course hot girls but no porn or nudity, everyday I have people joining and getting a good amount of daily visits.
After analyzing my options and interacting with the members via polls, I have decided to change from dragonfly to vBulletin and close off part of the forum for paid members only. I'm also planning to change from GoDaddy to Hostgator, since hostgator allows porn. Plus hostgator has unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space.

I have the following questions:

1 How would I migrate all the already registered members to vBulletin and would it be difficult?

2 I'm not looking for a high end payment processing system, I've thought about PayPal and probably phone payments, but if I use paypal, how would vBulletin software know who is a paid member and who is a regular member?

3 Since I plan on having paypal take care of payments, I want to know if everything will get done automatically with paypal from payment to giving the user instant access to the paid section (if this is possible)

In a post that I participate in, I mentioned that I frequent a website with over 98,000 members, the site uses paypal to handle transactions, so as soon as you pay, you get redirected to the sign in page and you have instant access to the site. I want to know if that's all paypal or maybe the website techs?

Ok, anyone? Nobody knows how I can do this?

I have the following questions:

2 I'm not looking for a high end payment processing system, I've thought about PayPal and probably phone payments, but if I use paypal, how would vBulletin software know who is a paid member and who is a regular member?

I would'nt use paypal if I was you anything slightly to do with adult especially what you are wanting to do will end up in you having your account banned and funds seazed. You will need to use an adult processor and have it coded into your system.
Another thing to note, you mentioned hostgator give unlimited space and bandwidth, there is no such thing as uncapped, you will find you pay for what you get. If you intend on having a large forum with high traffic volumes you will need a decent host with a leased line, eg 20MB/sec with burst to 100MB/sec for short periods to cover high volume times.

Britannia said:

I have the following questions:

2 I'm not looking for a high end payment processing system, I've thought about PayPal and probably phone payments, but if I use paypal, how would vBulletin software know who is a paid member and who is a regular member?

I would'nt use paypal if I was you anything slightly to do with adult especially what you are wanting to do will end up in you having your account banned and funds seazed. You will need to use an adult processor and have it coded into your system.
Another thing to note, you mentioned hostgator give unlimited space and bandwidth, there is no such thing as uncapped, you will find you pay for what you get. If you intend on having a large forum with high traffic volumes you will need a decent host with a leased line, eg 20MB/sec with burst to 100MB/sec for short periods to cover high volume times.

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Ok if not hostgator than what do you suggest? Large forum? What is large? Anything over 5,000 members?

It's not going to be a complete porn site, just have a part of the forum where only members can access it, and yeah I'll have a few porn movies in there.

Ok so no paypal, what do you suggest?

KillerBee said:

Ok if not hostgator than what do you suggest? Large forum? What is large? Anything over 5,000 members?

It's not going to be a complete porn site, just have a part of the forum where only members can access it, and yeah I'll have a few porn movies in there.

Ok so no paypal, what do you suggest?

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Ok as far as hosts go you will need a good managed server deal with a leased MB/sec line this is only if you plan to have a big forum by big i mean 50,000-100,000 users for porn you will need that amount especially if its general vanilla stuff, if you are creating a forum for ppl that are into breathplay for eg you would obviously not need such a large userbase.

Try netwisp . com ask for Hal say Aaron sent you as far as a good adult host with great support, ive found in my days with paysites the larger hosts have massive problems with support and when something inevitably goes wrong you need quick and timely support ideally from someone who speaks english as their 1st language often tech support is farmed out which can create massive headaches when trying to get your point across esp when time = money. So small to medium size hosts like netwisp usually give the better support and get to know you on a personal level.

If you do intend to charge then I would make the forum free until you have built up a decent size userbase or you may find it hard converting them when there are lots of free forums around dedicated to porn eg board . freeones . com if you cant compete don't even try possibly think about smaller niche subjects where the users would be more inclined to pay.

As for a processor use ccbill . com you will need yourself a developer who can do the necessary work for you try contacting the owners of this forum as they have some pretty cool mods done they maybe able to point you in the right direction, a board using ccbill as an eg for you would be thecandidboard . com

Anyway mate I hope that helps in anyway and feel free to ask anything else you might need.

Aaron

Hey Britannia It's not a 50-60,000 member forum, more like 5,000. Yeah I know there are tons of forums that offer some free porn, but is it the same to ask some members or at least those that are willing, to donate vs charge a monthly subscription?
Another thing is that the majority of my users are spanish speakers either here in the u.s. Or somewhere, that means that the majority want porn at lower prices or free of course. So how I'm I supposed to monetize a semi-adult forum when adsense does not allow that, and the majority of people are there to look at movies or pics?
Freeones only offer 12 second clips or similar. I ran a poll and asked my users if they were willing to pay, a lot of them said yes, now one thing is to say yes and another is to actually go through with it.
Ccbill? I don't know, since some of the stuff will be from other sites. Like I said, the forum is a normal forum for guys, hotgirls, sports, politics and then there's the video section that's going to have movies.
Any other solutions?

What do I need??? NO I don't want ccbill.

you could always set up cpa offers for access. find some good spanish related [phone calls] offers that pay more than you were thinking of charging.

DrJekyll said:

you could always set up cpa offers for access. find some good spanish related [phone calls] offers that pay more than you were thinking of charging.

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Good idea dude, I'd buy you a beer but you're somewhere else.