CMS and Forum software

for windows 2000 server

[Marketing Guy]

Hey folks

Can anyone recommend a content management system for a win2k hosted site?

My wishlist of features:

> Article management - I would like to add articles / comments via web (as oppose to uploading files). A "latest articles" and/or "most popular article" feature would be good, as would new article summaries on homepage.

> Decent support - modules for new features, etc,

> Discussion forum with reasonable amount of admin control (not essential - i could add in other forum software).

I looked at PHP nuke but as far as i can see it requires an Apache server and I dont really want to move host right now.

I would appreciate any input you can offer! :)

Regards
Scott

[trillianjedi]

I'm interested in this too.

PHP Nuke and other variants are a total waste of time as they're so hard to make search engine friendly that it's quicker just to roll your own.

I'm thinking about building a decent SEO'd CMS system - do you think there's a market for one?

I have yet to find one - not sure one exists.

TJ

[Marketing Guy]

Do you think it would be worthwhile using and adapting some blog software and seperate forum software?

I really dont have the technical skills to churn out my own CMS / portal and my main motivation is that i dont have the time to develop and maintain the site that im going to use it on.

So, some portal software with good admin control that can be easily customised would be ideal for me.

Also, as this is <yet another> free information site, I would ideally like something that's freely available (I can live with the owners logo, links n stuff on the site).

Scott

[trillianjedi]

For the forum, phBB2 isn't bad - and can be mod-rewritten to make it reasonably SE friendly. It does do page titles by thread name too if you use it outside a CMS (put it in PHP Nuke for example and you just get the main site title instead). It's free, with a link back to their site.

Not sure about converting a blog package as I've never tried.

I'm amazed that I've never found something like you're after. I can't believe that someone somwhere hasn't already created an SEO CMS system that's free for non-commercial use.

Let me know if you do succesfully convert a blog package.

TJ

[FalunGongDisciple]

I'm researching exactly the same topic, and the most correct answer seems to be Movable Type [movabletype.org]. Highly templated with huge support and a lot of plugins, SEOable.

Requirements:
- perl: It is coded in perl, so you'll need to have it installed on your server + to have access to the cgi-bin directory.
- database: "There are two storage options for Movable Type, Berkeley DB or MySQL. Nearly all hosts with Perl support include Berkeley DB, and many support MySQL. We strongly recommend using a MySQL database if the option exists on your server." (from their website)

FGD.

[cyril kearney]

fullxml is a content management system using asp and employing xml. It is free at the fullxml site.

I've used it on two customer sites and they found it easy to maintain. I had no difficulty in integrating .asp files. It comes with several skins or you can adapt your own.

Data is stored in flat files not in a database so uploading and changing can be done by just about any text editor even notepad.

[ogletree]

I use sitesage from starphire. The guys their have great support. They just released a new version that has a lot more features. They really work with you on the SEO stuff. The owner is actually the person that introduced me to WW. I think it has all you need. It is an ASP non database system. It is very easy to use. Out of the box it does not have some of the SEO stuff but there is an easy patch you just have to ask them. They said they were adding an SEO section to their manual but I am not sure if they have done it yet.

I think they have a smaller freee version.