What's Managed Hosting?

Drupal is a powerful open source application, constantly being updated and added to by people all over the world. Because it is a PHP/MySQL application, it can be installed from publicly available compressed files and hosted on a standard LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / PHP) platform for very little money. http://www.bluehost.com, for example, charges $6.95/month. However, you're on your own - with module installs and configuration, with security updates, and anything else that might require time-tested Drupal hosting savvy.

Manged Drupal Hosting with Game Face begins with a optimized company-specific Drupal configuration that has gone through many years of customization, hosted on a dedicated server designed to manage, update and present Drupal sites reliably and fast. The initial install and configuration of non-core modules is part of web development - but the updating of those modules is part of hosting. Whether you require an online store, a newsletter made up of aggregated Blog feeds, or rich search engine optimization that are not part of the default core modules, it is helpful to have a web developer and host in one package.

Why Go Through All That?

Drupal does many wonderful things "out of the box" - which would otherwise require developer time to theme and integrate into a "flat site" if you were working with Dreamweaver or (shudder) FrontPage. Bryght, the industry leader in Drupal hosting, groups these functions as follows:

Community Features

• Blogs: Every member can have their own blog, including per-member RSS feeds, as well a combined feed of all blog posts
• Photos: upload images into a central site gallery or use as a simple asset management system
• Forums: for threaded discussions
• Polls: find out what your community thinks on an issue
• Profiles: share as little or as much of your individual personality as you choose; a social network with the fields you think are important
• Events: flexible date handling lets you build calendars and schedules with moderated submissions.

Content Management

• Files: share PDFs, Word docs and other "non-Web native" content with your community
• Rich Text Editing: use a simple browser interface to include styled text, links, and even images (see a screencast of Lee drag and dropping from Flickr)
• Content queuing: allow users to submit content or comments into an approval queue, and decide what you want to publish

Syndication and Aggregation

• Syndicate everything: every topic (and even every member) has it's own RSS feed; you can also use this with aggregation to share content amongst many member sites
• RSS Aggregation: pick custom news sources to have dynamic content constantly update your site.

What About Rates?

Gameface Web Design does not provide hosting for the general public - only for our web design clients.  If you have found this page and are looking for a reliable Drupal host, call Bryght!  But if you are considering hiring Gameface Web Design to create a competitive website that is Searchable, Sexy, Sticky, Smart, Speedy, and Spot-On, look no further!  Our standard hosting rate is $180 per year, with additional work done hourly ($75/hour) or by special arrangement.