you never know how long it last but i can guaranty the life expectancy of free domain hosting forum last about 5-7 months. Longer if they do provide paid hosting, to offset cost. However most closed down not due to cost but due to people breaking the rules.

Your forum only survives as long as you are interested to keep it alive, that’s why I always advice people to start forums in niche they are truly interested in and can remain interested for a long time, preferably lifetime.

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India Travel Forum | Why most forums fail within 1 year! | Free Travel Directory

As I have said elsewhere with so many free forums out there now they are popping up at an alarming rate. People seem to think it's easy ( well the set up is ) to run your own forum they don't realise the dedication and long hours you have to put into to keep it active.

You also have to come up with new and exciting ideas that other forums don't have to keep other people interested enough to keep coming back to your forum.

Some just rely on a close circle of friends and think that is enough to keep their forum going and sometimes this can be enough. It just depends if you want your forum to be big or small and cosy for just your closer friends etc.

I delete non active members from mine on a regular basis if I didn't my member list would be double what it shows now. But I don't see the point in havin a large member list that is only full of people who don't post.

My forum has been around for just over 2 years now and I have seen many other forums that members from mine have set up close mainly because of the effort they have to put in to it or they realise the restrictions of having a free forum. And don't have the knowledge to set one up them selves.

I make no money from my site I have no adverts on my site it was purely something I wanted to do.

AS for the life expectancy of my forum I guess it's until I have decided not to lay out any more money on servers etc. I would also probably give it away to someone I knew would continue with it or maybe try and sell it just not sure. But I hope to be around for a lot longer yet

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www.newchatterbox.co.uk

it all depends on how you run your forum, interaction with member, content of the forum. these are some basic things i believe should be taken care of. i used to run an entertainment forum but it failed just because i was too busy with school, studies and lack of time

i have started a new forum lately and i give dedicated time to it and would be continuing to do so. I just hope that i will be able to run it as long as possible.

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Webmaster Forum | Webmaster Blog | Web Directory

I think the biggest problem forum owners are facing right now is social websites like myspace. I have seen allot of forums die over the years and I am talking about community's with 100+ members on at all times. I think one of two things happen to a forum. The admin/mods get greedy and change the direction of the forum. (filling it with ads ect, to try and make a quick buck) Or the admin/mods loose interest. Those are two sure fire ways to kill a forum off quick. I would say if your forum is 2+ years old and still going strong then your doing really good.

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