Is it worth it?

[imported_HadleyHost]

Hey all

Is it worth it to offer free webhosting with banners and no hotlinking?

 

[Lesli]

Depends on why you offer it. If the reasoning is "for emotional satisfaction of helping my friends", then it could be worth it.

 

[FatalSw1tch]

In other words.... no . It really isn't good because word gets out and then you have to start turning people away.

 

[RobAPI]

I don't think it would bring the type of clients you want.
It will bring a lot of people looking for free hosting, but you will have a hard time trying to convert those to paying customers.
Many can't because they are too young or don't have the money for premium hosting.
It isn't very likely many will upgrade after being with you for a while, I think your costs with be more than profit.

if, on the other hand, you are doing it just to help people out, then it will give your company a good reputation (If you do it properly of course) and people will be very grateful.
But I wouldn't do it as a way of making profit to be honest

 

[FatalSw1tch]

I agree with robert, you want to pay as little out of your pocket for servers as possible if not zero out of your pocket and put into your pocket.

 

[Dom]

I'm guessing from your terms that you are most likely wanting to convert people to premium customers and to attract more attention to your business/site.

I don't think free hosting is a good marketing method.
If I saw a free host offering something, I would go with them, then if I found somewhere better, for free, I would move...
I am just saying this because I know 80% of your customers are likely to be like this.
You won't get many loyal customers through free hosting.
Most will be too young to pay for premium hosting anyway

 

[gooooogle]

If it's customers you want you could try offering 15 day trail hosting.

 

[SSH-Raj]

but what if you do it for links? you could get a much petter page rank.

 

[BlackStorm]

but what if you do it for links? you could get a much petter page rank.

Do you think page rank is really that important?
It won't really bring you anymore premium customers or income, unless you are putting ads on your hosting site

I ran a free hosting company for over a year, which was very successful.
It really demands a lot of work, the customers on free hosting tend to need more help than those on premium, either because they don't want to look around for the cause of a problem they are having (To do with their own installed scripts etc. nothing to do with the hosting or server), because some might want everything done for them and not work ontheir site at all (I had a lot of people that got angry because I wouldn't design their site ) or because a lot of people looking for free hosting are very young and don't really know too much about their site or hosting yet, this is also understandable and I try help them out as much as possible, but it is true that you learn a lot more if you try find the solution yourself

I have been thinking about offering limited free hosting accounts again, I stopped because I didn't want the level of support to go down and didn't want to overload support with too many customers, free and premium so I had to stop at some point.
Since then lots of the free accounts have been closed because they either weren't used, the site was just left with no activity for over 6 months (Including visitors) or because they moved on to somewhere they found something better.

Believe me, free hosting will not help you get more premium customers, nowhere near enough to cover your own costs, unless you are running ads on their site or some other method of making money.
Don't be expecting to make your profit from them converting to premium accounts.
I had very few people signup for premium hosting, even the ones that were with me for over a year, I still have a lot of free accounts going now that I doubt will ever upgrade.

I didn't do it to make profit though, I done it to get my name out (For free hosting mainly actually as I didn't offer premium when I started doing free hosting) and to help out people that needed it.

I didn't place ads on any sites and never asked them to link back to me, I was, of course, happy when they did link back to me though

In Short: It may be worth it if you can ensure they all place the banners on their sites and you can get good rates for clicks. It is not worth it if you are trying to get them to upsell to premium accounts. It is worth it if you just want to help people.

John

 

[alpha]

I think that is really bad for customers to demand the earth when they are getting their hosting for free. I know that the customer is always king, but I reckon some just take liberties.