If a host want to add adult hosting to their service, would it influence the potential clients that will sign up with them? That host will have a different server for adult hosting, not the same server as regular hosting.

What do you guys think?

With some of the feedback I've seen in this forum and others, I'd say that it would influence quite a few clients as to choosing which hosts to sign up with, since adult hosting has (quite truthfully) a sordid reputation for hogging all the bandwidth, HDD space, etc.

I think if you make it absolutely dead clear that you offer adult hosting on a completely different server then it might help, but that underlying perception's still there.

Agreed. That, and you will never half 1/4 the trouble with your regular hosting clients as you will with adult hosting clients. There are so many more issues to worry about with legalities, bandwidth consumption, etc. That, and it's just plain harder to make money on adult hosting clients. Their average usage chart is through the roof compared to normal hosting, so your room to make a profit is much less.

It's still an individual business decision, but given the stigma attached to adult hosting by non-adult clients, and the difficulty in making a profit from them, I'd steer clear.

If you want to get into Adult hosting then your best bet would be to set-up a separate company to do so and tailor the plans so that you can still make a healthy living off it.

I know design agencies that do similar things, they have two companies and use one for designing adult sites and one for non adult sites.

I agree with KDA. If you're going to do it, set up a separate company. Different people object to adult sites for different reasons. Some object due to their own sense of morality and indignation.

As long as you kept adult sites on separate servers and charge them accordingly for bandwidth and other resources without having them subsidized by other clients, most of the technical issues should be a moot point.

Personally, my concern would be the effect hosting adult sites might have on things like a host tolerating spammers. I would sure keep a close eye on Spamhaus and any host that hosts adult sites. Even with a different company name, sooner or later it will be known that the two companies are owned by the same people.

Since the adult industry, as a whole, has abused the Internet the most, I would be concerned with how tolerant a host might be of those adult sites that engaged in that abuse. Certainly not every adult site engages in abuse (Usenet, alternate newsgroups, and e-mail spam, among others), but it's bad enough that any adult site bears close watching.

I agree with all the previous posts, but I'll add my two cents.

-Make sure that you will get a separate domain, and a server for adult hosting, and do not link to it on your regular hosting site.

-Price your plans so, that you will be able to make a profit. Porn sites most likely WILL use up all the bandwidth that you include.
A good way to set a price is to include all the bandwidth costs in it. If your upstream charges you $5 for a gig, and you include 10 gigs in a plan, then you should price it $50 on a spot. (just an example)
It would be also good to charge money in advance for 3 month of service or more.

-If you really want to make a big profit, you can offer merchant services as well, or any other billing solutions. It is obvious that most of your customers will need that feature.