- City Portal Script -

[ibydesign]

Originally Posted by tphelan

Hi Johnn

Here's some options:

www.phpmydirectory.com - I haven't used this one myself but know others who have and they like it quite a bit. I'm planning to eventually try them out. It's a reasonable price.

http://www.edirectory.com/ - Looks like a great way to go except they are not inexpensive. There's a set up price and also ongoing monthly costs. They look like they put a great directory online though.

Another option is we can make a portal for you. It's not just one script and takes about a week or so to have it up and running completely. It does quite a bit and costs over $1000 but unlike edirectory.com there are no ongoing fees. Here's one of mine that is almost done:

www.sjdowntown.net

I like what you did with yours! Nice job.

[dadster]

Well its not a script, but heres one I put together myself:

htttp://www.DallasTxUSA.com

[rich993]

Hey there.

Check out phpmydirectory for the portal and then pmdstyles and pmdtemplates for customizing the look of it.

- Richard

Originally Posted by Johnn

I am looking for a city portal script - Prefer PHP.
- Local news
- Business Directory listing
- Classified Ads
- Forums

I did check Joomla (overkilled) and WordPress.

Thanks,

[Nova]

Originally Posted by kokopelli

Have a look at cityguidesite.com - it's a hosted solution with a 15 day free trial. Afterwards, $5.95/month i.t.o. their current special. You might be able to build and flip the domain within the trial period

Originally Posted by Johnn

Just set two up with cityguide

http://Harrisburgguide.com

http://visitboston.net

I have a bunch of other names but the license is not available.

I just checked out a few cities and the cheapest fee I found was $200+/mo. I guess the special is over.

[DotComGod]

http://www.jivesoftware.com/products...pace-community
http://www.leveragesoftware.com/
http://buildacommunity.com/

Here's another 3 to checkout....

-=DCG=-

[DotComGod]

Just checked out cityguidesite.com

Thats a darn good system.

-=DCG=-

[amcdonald]

agreed. cityguidesite seems like a nice system. I might try it out for a few months.

[DNP]

Originally Posted by DotComGod

Just checked out cityguidesite.com

Thats a darn good system.

-=DCG=-

And they charge you every month during the whole life cycle of your site Thank you, but I prefer one time initial payment.

Once you decide that you are ready to continue, then you can select from either a 1 month, 3 month, 6 month or 12 month license term that will renew automatically until you decide to cancel.

[ddaybofb]

Also the charge per month is different when you pick a city.

Like New Haven, CT is $25 per month and LA is $250 per month.

[azanmi]

Just curious, is anyone making any money on their city sites?
What template seems to generate the most repeat business and best CTR?

[copper]

Originally Posted by ddaybofb

Also the charge per month is different when you pick a city.

Like New Haven, CT is $25 per month and LA is $250 per month.

$250/mth is not small change.
That's one ok dedicated server cost.

[onlinetv]

Originally Posted by Nova

I just checked out a few cities and the cheapest fee I found was $200+/mo. I guess the special is over.

Forget the special, I tried to get to all these sites and none of them exist anymore. Plesk errors and Apache on the city main site. Either they beat it out of town with the cash or they are not reliable for commercial service. Either way perhaps another day?

[DotComGod]

I grabbed a city and I am testing, I can tell you that I haven't generated much revenue but traffic is way up and I now have 9 pages indexed, none were indexed before I started.

-=DCG=-

[EUROPEAN]

cityguidesite.com appears to be down would love to see a link to a running site using this script.

[robertsz]

Are there any scripts that are easy to use with adsense?

[tldrental]

still down.......... any of you guys using cityguidesite.com still have live sites, did they take your money and run?

[slobizman]

I just read all the posts here as I am also planning a city site with a cityname.info domain name. I've gone through all the thinking many of you here have. But there is one thing not talked about much that I'd like to bring up.

My understanding is that sites do way better in terms of advertising clicks with visitors who happen upon your site through search engines, than do a community of users that use your site on a periodic basis for a directory or social feaures. The city I am going to do is not only a community, but it is also a year round travel destination. So, I'm thinking I want to get those searching for destination information to find my site when searching for information. What's the bet way to do this?

I think perhaps the best way is to have hundreds of informative articles on activities, regions, lodging, restaurants, hiking, wineries (we have 150 wineries), beaches, etc. Almost like a very free-form magazine. With a major university in the town, I'm sure there must be plenty of journalism students that would write these articles pretty inexpensively (I'm not worried about spends $XX,XXX on this project anyway). If the site were massive, with lots of great information, and SEO'd perfectly, it's bound to move high up in the search ranks. And those searching would be very inquisitive and thus likely to click relevent ads. Once the site gets good traffic, local advertisers would come into play.

As for the software, I'm thinking that perhaps an Article Management script would work well. I have seen some from InteractiveTools.com, Interspire.com and others. Although, a pure article management script could limit me in terms of adding things like an event calendar, reviews, etc.

Could I get your thoughts on all this? Appreciate it.

[copper]

Originally Posted by slobizman

As for the software, I'm thinking that perhaps an Article Management script would work well. I have seen some from InteractiveTools.com, Interspire.com and others. Although, a pure article management script could limit me in terms of adding things like an event calendar, reviews, etc.

Joomla!
Currently, I am working on this one

[llizards]

Originally Posted by Nullmind

It's a nice site! I'm a big fan of Drupal. What module have you used for it?

I'm using Joomla for my little geo domain Benevento and Sobi2 module for directory. Really easy to manage

I am using CCK, Views, 5star voting and custom themes

[slobizman]

Originally Posted by DotComGod

http://www.jivesoftware.com/products...pace-community
http://www.leveragesoftware.com/
-=DCG=-

These two look great, but it always irritates em when they don't put prices on their site. Have an idea of how expensive they are, so I don't need to hook up with a salesman yet?