Kingfish85
Member
Same boat. I think maybe 1 or 2 of them actually went with a paid plan. The rest never answered emails about changing servers, were found in violation of TOS, fake/fraudulent customer info etc. Absolute nightmare.
Paid hosting and free hosting
- Thread starter 2funhosting
- Start date
Same boat. I think maybe 1 or 2 of them actually went with a paid plan. The rest never answered emails about changing servers, were found in violation of TOS, fake/fraudulent customer info etc. Absolute nightmare.
hostyhosty
New member
Sorry but I tend to disagree with the few on this thread about free hosting, some people cannot afford paid web hosting, and in 2014 we sadly find the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
I don't think it's right to segregate people just because of their financial circumstances.
That is why [some companies] offer a free package for those who are maybe not able to afford a paid package right now but could afford it in a few months or so or whenever they are able to.
A free customer is just as good as a paid customer, it's better than no customers at all and the way I look at it is, they have chosen [that] firm for their hosting needs whether it is free or paid.
I think this is more the correct attitude to take when it comes to dealing with new and potential customers.
MOD NOTE: Edited for promotional talk.
I don't think it's right to segregate people just because of their financial circumstances.
That is why [some companies] offer a free package for those who are maybe not able to afford a paid package right now but could afford it in a few months or so or whenever they are able to.
A free customer is just as good as a paid customer, it's better than no customers at all and the way I look at it is, they have chosen [that] firm for their hosting needs whether it is free or paid.
I think this is more the correct attitude to take when it comes to dealing with new and potential customers.
MOD NOTE: Edited for promotional talk.
rowebca
Member
But they have money for smartphones, for laptops etc, parties, drinks, smoking etc. Why somebody who doesn't have money needs a website? In my opinion people who are working they can afford, and people without money they don't really have time to have a website. Most of the customers for free web hosting are just kids (from good families with money) or abusers. No disrespect, but the person who is crying that they don't have money have more money than the real people without money who are not crying...
I have seen many things in my life about this, believe me...and every time people with money are crying for more....
Regards
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
I 100% agree. Here in the UK if you dont work you get benefit, but you see these unemployed with the latest smartphone, 2000inch latest flatscreen TV, latest flash vehicle, latest xbox, latest designer clothes and smoking 200 cigs a day.
yet working people cant afford half as much as those that dont work
Bless you!
Yeah, I know. I was giving an exception to the general rule.
And all their sins will be forgiven. Bless them!
Webhosting is a business.
If you give away free accounts, you are giving away your servers resources for free.
It's difficult to convert someone from a free account to a paid account especially if you give good service. (we know, we tried for years when we did this).
So now you have a server with some free accounts.
To offset the cost of the free account you need more paid accounts than otherwise.
Now you have a server with alot more accounts on it than would have been necessary otherwise.
This server doesn't perform as well as it would have otherwise.
Free services are bad for business, and you do attract the wrong sort of tenants, don't try to persuade me otherwise we've rarely had to kick paying customers off the servers, but many free riders don't care whether they are good tenants or not, and make nuisance for others. We had to kick people off daily.
If you offer free accounts, don't share a server with paid customers. Subsidize one server from your profits and keep them separate, or risk losing the customers you have.
If your customer is not paying you, how do you REALLY know who they are? How can they be held responsible?
If you are giving free accounts away on your reseller account then it's only a matter of time until you lose favor with your host.
Don't get me wrong we offer free hosting to charities and various worthwhile organisations. But we'll never do it again for the public.
This isn't theory, it's experience.
If you are giving away free hosting then I hope you have a better experience than we did for the 4 years we did it.
If you give away free accounts, you are giving away your servers resources for free.
It's difficult to convert someone from a free account to a paid account especially if you give good service. (we know, we tried for years when we did this).
So now you have a server with some free accounts.
To offset the cost of the free account you need more paid accounts than otherwise.
Now you have a server with alot more accounts on it than would have been necessary otherwise.
This server doesn't perform as well as it would have otherwise.
Free services are bad for business, and you do attract the wrong sort of tenants, don't try to persuade me otherwise we've rarely had to kick paying customers off the servers, but many free riders don't care whether they are good tenants or not, and make nuisance for others. We had to kick people off daily.
If you offer free accounts, don't share a server with paid customers. Subsidize one server from your profits and keep them separate, or risk losing the customers you have.
If your customer is not paying you, how do you REALLY know who they are? How can they be held responsible?
If you are giving free accounts away on your reseller account then it's only a matter of time until you lose favor with your host.
Don't get me wrong we offer free hosting to charities and various worthwhile organisations. But we'll never do it again for the public.
This isn't theory, it's experience.
If you are giving away free hosting then I hope you have a better experience than we did for the 4 years we did it.
Free Web Hosting is normally not backed up with good tech support. Also chances are a lot of unwanted ads may pop up on your website which you do not want. As likely said above, some companies offer free web hosting for a month or so in order to build a client base. But all said and done paid web hosting is definitely better if you are wanting to host a business website. You cannot afford to risk your business in order to save a couple of dollars on web hosting. :shaky:
And|newHOST.ro
New member
Most of the free hosting plans will probably cause you problems (maybe no support, maybe the server is crowded, etc). However, some of the free hosting offers may be used by a providet as a way to promote his services. Get a small plan for free, test it and when you'll need more resources and you are happy you will have to upgrade to a higher plan that is not for free anymore. And if this is the case, even if it is free you will benefit of good service quality. A good promotion idea if you think about it.
Thanks for letting us know that nothing has changed since December
raindog308
New member
There was a book published on free web hosting - freewebhostingtalk.com (which is a ghost town now) has a link.
Long story short, you can monetize free hosting services with forced ads, post to host systems, etc.
That said, I think that worked better 5 or 10 years ago than now. Today web hosting is so ridiculously cheap that anyone who can't afford web hosting probably can't afford a computer.
I agree that free hosting is a haven for users you don't want.
you were right
HostUS-Alex
New member
You also have to remember, when you offer free hosting, it lowers the value of your paid hosting. Unless you run it under a different brand.
I have no idea why would someone want to go to a free hosting service when webhosting ranges from $1 - $15 / month which is extremely cheap and big companies provide it for extremely low prices aswell so in my idea they shouldn't even have ''free hosting'' in their heads if they want to have a brighter future
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
its because some people dont want to spend the $1 and would rather have a site as mybusiness.strangesubdomain.com and use a @gmail email address rather than pay $1 for hosting and get a real domain and use a real email address
alexapamten
New member
There is nothing free in hosting. If any website owner has low budget for hosting then the owner can choose shared hosting (the cheapest hosting plan) but free hosting is not recommended.
HostSailor
Member
Free hosting is an open gate for abusers to abuse the system thus making it very harmful for other users on the server/services sharing the resources, you get what you pay for.
4D Hosting
New member
Free hosting can be used to do testing or for temporary use, I have used them once in Uni to get my website published, they do place few ads on your site. I wonder if there are any free hosting without ads.
The problem with having ads placed on your site, is you are not in control of what ads could be placed.
The ads could be anything, even porn ads (unlikely but possible) on your "family friendly" blog.
It's not worth it!
The host has to make their money somehow, servers and staff do no pay for themselves.
The ads could be anything, even porn ads (unlikely but possible) on your "family friendly" blog.
It's not worth it!
The host has to make their money somehow, servers and staff do no pay for themselves.
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