Why do many people choose Hosting Business ??

[sridatta]

I wonder how companies manage to earn by offering free hosting plans without ads.. for example, www.110mb.com donot put any ads but still manage to run so many servers (almost 10 servers) to host several accounts, and offer free support.. what is the income source for them?

[AWorker]

I am also wondering why.I can think only at the fact that they might offer paid packages too,so if a begginer take a free pack first,later on,when his bussines grows he will need a paid hosting servicesand of course,90%chances that hell take the same company.

[kewlchat]

I am also wondering why.I can think only at the fact that they might offer paid packages too,so if a begginer take a free pack first,later on,when his bussines grows he will need a paid hosting servicesand of course,90%chances that hell take the same company.

Yep i think thats what they do.. you know people can get what they call reseller plans and then you can sell hosting for the companys..
Im thinking about getting a reseller plan so that i cna sell hosting but i dont know any good hosting companys that do reseller plans..

Im going to search it and ill let you guys know :)

[sridatta]

sorry friends.. i missed a point with 110mb.. Now, it flashed in my mind.. I have hosted my site previously in 110mb.. and it went fine for an year.. recently, they removed mysql support for all members and asked for 9.95$ to enable again.. they also removed fsockopen, phpmail() etc..Yesterday night, i saw their support forums, and they are discussing that they are going to remove FTP support too.. They are demanding money for every thing.. Imagine people who hosted forums/blogs.. they should pay or they lose everything.. I think every other free hosting service plan to do the same things..

[Fergal]

If you look at 110mb.com you will see that they actually have ads on their site. A banner ad in the header, "Great Resources" text links in the right hand column and a vertical banner below the text links.

They also have a service where they sell website traffic, which is another source of revenue.

[spirited]

I don't see how free hosts would support themselves with just advertising for so long. I've seen an incredible number of ones that just came and went after complaining of barely any revenue from ads. Instead, free hosts should offer a wide variety of services that the paid one's do, but at the same time restrict their packages to the popularity of sites; I know some do it but not all.

[Mano]

Well Thats a very interesting Question . If we talk of free hosts in general then The Free Hosts Ren thier business on account of :

1. The Ads ( google / yahoo etc ) of course on their own site.

2. Forced ads on Clients Sites.

3. By Sellng off their Clent Base ( once they Grow Big ) to another company . An example is the "ahm hosting" that was freepaid host but later was aquired by another company that asked the users to pay.

4. The 404 Traffic. Web1000.com got started this way only.

5. Just getting famous. Say zoomcities. now if they get paid many free clients will go with their paid serveices.

6. Impress the Free clients by the services ( that has relatively less features ) and convince them to get a paid account.

7. Post2Host free hosts expect that members will click the ads in the forums, that helps them fund the hosting.

8. Some hosts personally afford Free Hosting as their Hobby.

any comments ? u r most welcome .

[spirited]

1, 2, and 3 has all happened to me Mano, but I am extremely curious about number 4. Now how does a hosting site manage to survive on 404 traffic? Do you mean that they paid other sites to put their link on their 404 page? Seems quite weird what you are stating there. Also, as for 5, I really doubt free users will go to paid packages; once they go free, almost all stay there unless their site somehow grows exponentially.

[Mano]

1, 2, and 3 has all happened to me Mano, but I am extremely curious about number 4. Now how does a hosting site manage to survive on 404 traffic? Do you mean that they paid other sites to put their link on their 404 page? Seems quite weird what you are stating there. Also, as for 5, I really doubt free users will go to paid packages; once they go free, almost all stay there unless their site somehow grows exponentially.

Well , the fact is one cant "survive" on 1,2,3, or 4.. its the future strategy. The 5 most of the times is the dominanat factor is the site has a serious free hosting interest otherwiese u must have witnesses that most free hosts dont last even for 6 months !

You are absolutely correct that 404 traffic is not enough , but ( generally ) these companies offer very small packages and low bandwidth.. so that can afford larger no of free clients . they dont offer cpanel , hardly 50-200 mb space and most of the times less than 5 GB bandwidth.

They simplay place their sponsors link on 404 pages and expect them to be clicked.

Of course NO hosting can survice unless its Paid for in the Genuine Manner.

[spirited]

ah, that's what i thought at the back of my mind when you said 404 traffic. and yes, the point was that free hosts could not survive unless first, they never, ever, oversell, second, restrict higher packages to high-yield sites, third, have a good advertising strategy, and fourth, plenty of luck. Most of owners of free hosting sites are probably going to end up paying at least some out of their pocket in the end anyway.

[sridatta]

404 traffic... many free hosting sites redirect the users from error page to their homepage to register.. you can check that with 110mb too.. I would agree, if they have some ads in the 404 page & if they put up some site down for an hour which has good traffic, then error page appears for everyone and hence they can earn lot of revenue through ads.. but, again redirecting to their homepage fetches them nothing..
I finally left belief on free hosts.. and moved to a paid host..

[spirited]

Yeah, I see what you are getting at now. I never really thought of hosting providers doing that; I only know that sometimes when sites are suspended or take down, the hoster may put their website up. And yes, I would think that practice to be non-professional: it really doesn't accomplish anything and it shows their desperation in getting more customers; stick with paid hosts or excellent quality free hosts for your services because it's not worth it.

[archgames]

I am also wondering why.I can think only at the fact that they might offer paid packages too,so if a begginer take a free pack first,later on,when his bussines grows he will need a paid hosting servicesand of course,90%chances that hell take the same company.

yep same no other way i can think off

[Slacker]

Many of them get the money from affiliate upgrades, and that is how they make the money. Some also have paid options as well

[sarahFreder]

actually its like not all the free domain hosters are really good, some drawbacks will happen when we host website through them like server down, site accessing problem etc., so its better to host a business site with a good hoster, if it even paid hoster not a problem. always look for good one than cheaper or free one.

[superbike]

If you want to host you site at free web hosting, please think twice. They often have hidden agenda which they do not want to tell you
Most of free web hosting does not provide immediate customer supports. If you do business, a few hours downtime will kill you. Their customer supports only reply you after a few days…….By then your business already dead.
They also provide users with low disk space and low bandwidth. If you plan a large business, undeniably, you should have a big space

[falguni1]

always pay for things, never take free things.

people who are selling are affiliates and earn by referring people it is an easy source of income.