I’m sorry but I’m a bit confused as to what I would need to make Discourse available for my website.
As far as I understand, you would need something like a forums. prefix to your current domain name and run a Docker Container or another whole server on that new prefixed domain to make Discourse available.
But couldn’t it be done by using the same domain name? Like, example.com/forums? Maybe Discourse is not formatted for that situation?
Another of my confusions is with respect to how I would be able to install it considering that I run my website on a HostGator server. I would have to pay for another server and domain and install Discourse there? Does anyone have directions for this situation?
Let me know what you think. You probably have completely different suggestions from what I expect.
I think that host gator doesn’t give you a full server, so you’d need to change hosting to do a subfolder install (actually, I think you might be able to a subfolder install with cloudflare in front, but I don’t know that anyone has done that).
Subfolder installs aren’t recommended and it seems that few people still believe that there is an SEO advantage, but if you want to do that, you’d see Subfolder support with Docker
I’d recommend going subdomain install for obvious reasons. forum.example.com isn’t that bad when it comes to hosting a forum for your Website.
You can also decide to go subfolder route as @pfaffman suggested above but in either case, You’d have to get a server other than your hostgator account.
You need what’s called a VPS with Root access to install and manage discourse.