I have a site- need a host.....suggestions?

[joe8841]

I currently have an ecommerce website set up which runs smoothly, processes credit cards, has customer support installed, etc. Basically I am very happy with it.

After a few months in operation, I received a lot of feedback from my visitors asking me to add a discussion forum to my site regarding my site's topic (obviously). One problem, my current shopping cart provider does NOT have the server capabilities to install a program like vbulletin.

My question.....what do I need to do in order keep my current site, domain name, etc, but add on vbulletin? Do I need to purchase a dedicated server? Which company is best for this? Can I use something like www.mysitename.forum.com as my web address for this new forum?

Any help you can offer would be more than appreciated as I am trying to get this new forum up and running as soon as possible. I would really like to use vbulletin for it, I just need some detailed direction in order to do so!

Thanks everyone!

[Wayne Luke]

vBulletin requires a web server that includes PHP (minimum version 4.3.3) and MySQL (minimum 4.0.16) installed. As long as you choose a host that meets these requirements you will be able to install and run our software.

Most credible hosts now support both PHP and MySQL, and can run our software. We do not make official recommendations, but we do have a hosting review forum here:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11

You can also look at http://www.webhostingtalk.com, an independent review site. Sometimes you will find hosting specials there that aren't available elsewhere on the web.

I am pretty sure the forum.com domain is taken but you should be able to route forum.mysitename.com to a hosting provider that is different from your ecommerce provider. Take to the various hosting providers if they can assist with this.

[joe8841]

I have found that urljet.com has a fairly streamlined process for setting up vbulletin on their server. My only confusion now lays in the process of getting my site directed to the new link of the discussion forum.....

Any details on doing so?