Different HOA hosting sites? Or self-hosting sites recommendations?

Started by FlM • 23 replies • 1572 views

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FlM (Florida)
Posts: 8

Posted:

First time posting, I hope this isn't a faux-pas or not allowed, but I would like to know what HOA website hosting tools or webmasters are out there.

My HOA is currently with a company that charged something like $350 for the initial startup, and the renewal is $350 per year. We have 139 single family homes and the HOA is all volunteer, so we're not part of a management company and we don't have a ton of people to reach out to.

The HOA website company we are currently with (have been with since 2008) upgraded all of their software. We are on their "old" plan. They offered to upgrade us to one of the "new" user models (which is more interactive and has a lot more features, such as paying annual dues online, etc) but the board doesn't want to spend the extra money to do so.

In the meantime, our site looks outdated, feels outdated, and hardly anyone goes to it. Or at least, that's what we suspect since the CO. that takes care of the website doesn't offer traffic counters! >

I got on the board over a year ago and did what I could do make the website more aesthetically pleasing, but was/am limited in the scope of what I can do.

I can do coding.... at a basic level, but this website company won't allow me to. They said THEY have to do all coding changes and would charge a fee for it.

SOOOO... I am in the process of trying to gather options for us to change to a different website.... or to even go off on our own. We own our domain and pay for that separately, so leaving the hosting site doesn't change our domain.

Any suggestions? And sorry to the creators of this forum, but the format for their HOA webpage is not exactly what I was looking for... it would be downgrading.

Suggestions appreciated, thanks!

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

FlM,

It appears that you have the knowledge to evaluate various hosting companies. Out of respect to our host, I don't feel it's appropriate to offer suggestions on this forum other than their own company.

I'm willing to let you know who we use but you will need to provide an e-mail address.
I understand the concern in publishing your personal e-mail address. Therefore, I would suggest that you create a new one (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.) and post that. This way, individuals may offer you suggestions.

FlM (Florida)
Posts: 8

Posted:

Am I able to delete my email address "post" after posting it for a little while? I only ask because I don't mind posting it in the short term - but I don't want to google my email address 5 years down the line and have this forum come up lol.

FlM (Florida)
Posts: 8

Posted:

And I have been looking up, googling, trying to research. If you google HOA association sites, the one my HOA currently uses is the first one that pops up.

And really, there's nothing WRONG with them. It's more what's wrong with my board. The hosting site we are currently using offered to upgrade us for a total of $300. $200 for a new code (redesign) fee which offers us pretty much everything, then a $100 content movement fee since we've been with them over 6 years.

My HOA is being cheap about this and doesn't want to do it. They are fine with the old format. The president thinks it is fine "as is" and says "we probably don't get much traffic anyway." I think a new, updated site would help that.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By FlM on 07/02/2014 10:44 AM
Am I able to delete my email address "post" after posting it for a little while? I only ask because I don't mind posting it in the short term - but I don't want to google my email address 5 years down the line and have this forum come up lol.

No. There is no edit feature enabled on this site (as we have all found out).

That is why I suggested you make a new e-mail address specifically for this forum. Then after you get responses, you can just abandon the address.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By FlM on 07/02/2014 10:50 AM

And I have been looking up, googling, trying to research. If you google HOA association sites, the one my HOA currently uses is the first one that pops up

That's possibly because of the cookies that are saved with your browser settings on your computer and the google search action that directs you to local sites first.

When I do a search using HOA Association sites I get seven different hosting companies followed by a site for Sun City AZ (and I'm in Virginia). However, I've disabled some of the features that has Google point me to local search results first Here is a link to an article on How to Disable Google Local Search

Quote:

Posted By FlM on 07/02/2014 10:50 AM

It's more what's wrong with my board. The hosting site we are currently using offered to upgrade us for a total of $300. $200 for a new code (redesign) fee which offers us pretty much everything, then a $100 content movement fee since we've been with them over 6 years.

We are self managed and also maintain a website. The site isn't that fancy (and can easily be made better). However, it works for what we wanted - a place members and residents can go to get documents and information about our Association and a little on the local community. We use a simple hosting service that provides us a fair number of options. Using their free software, there is no recoding costs (but someone in the Association has to do the design, updates, etc.) which also has some downfalls over a full service hosting company (like this sites host Community123.com).

It boils down to what are you looking for in a website and how much hand holding you may need from the hosting company.

EricH8 (Virginia)
Posts: 116

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By FlM

When I post, I don't see any menu for fancy formatting such as sad faces. Where do you get those things?

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

: + ) =

: + ( =

Remove the spaces and pluse sign (+).

EricH8 (Virginia)
Posts: 116

Posted:

How did you discover what features are available?

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

trial and error.

Subject: Test to see if emoticon works

and

Emoticons

I haven't tested them to see if all of them work or not.
Emoticons can be easily overused.

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

Can you provide instructions on using the quote function?

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

TEST

(

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnC46 on 07/06/2014 5:23 PM
TEST

(

First test.

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

EricH8 (Virginia)
Posts: 116

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By NpS on 07/06/2014 5:20 PM
Can you provide instructions on using the quote function?

When you click on Quote in order to reply, the post you are responding to is automatically included in quote format. It starts with

(less than sign) div class="NTForums_Quote" (greater than sign)
and ends with
(less than sign) /div (greater than sign)

You can copy-paste the quote format from several replies to combine them into one post.

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnC46 on 07/06/2014 5:23 PM
TEST

Second test.

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

;)

X-(

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By EricH8 on 07/06/2014 5:29 PM

Posted By NpS on 07/06/2014 5:20 PM
Can you provide instructions on using the quote function?

Could only do one quote. Second quote overrides first one. What am I doing wrong? Thx.

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

Some work, some don't.

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

If you delete some of what is inside the quote, you may end up dropping a command item. So be careful.

The typical way this shows is when your reply to the quote shows within the quote.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

As for posting links, I use the following site, cut/paste and substitute.

http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/html_link_code.cfm

If you forget the page, there are other sites that offer the same examples. Simply do a search for HTML Link code

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By TimB4 on 07/06/2014 5:37 PM
If you delete some of what is inside the quote, you may end up dropping a command item. So be careful.

Or if this works, you can:

Quote:

Posted By TimB4 on 07/06/2014 5:37 PM
The typical way this shows is when your reply to the quote shows within the quote.

Hit quote, copy it, edit the stuff out of the quote you don't want, making sure you leave the header and end intact. write your reply, past the quote again, edit out the stuff you don't want. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

EricH8 (Virginia)
Posts: 116

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By NpS
Could only do one quote. Second quote overrides first one.

Quote:

Posted By NpS
What am I doing wrong? Thx.

You can click Quote several times to get the text that's automatically formatted but you need to copy your second quote text and paste it into your first reply right after the first first reply.
If you are responding to two quotes from the same previous post, your can just duplicate the entire quoted message and edit out the undesired quote text in each to make them different.

You can also reduce the amount of blank space by reducing the number of line returns:
(less than sign) br (greater than sign

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

Instructions appreciated. Will test some more.

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

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