What are anyones thoughts on running an adult web hosting business? Just as competive and are there higher riskes to the hosting company then with normal hosting?

Just some questions in the back of my mind....

Security is one issue that is different. Adult sites get hit more often than normal sites by hackers. Adult sites also get high volumes of traffic.

Keep in mind also that adult sites sometimes have owners (more than typical hosting sites) that spam, and that could have you shut down even if you're not the one doing it.

Thanks!

Yeah I fimilar with the spam issue, we would be getting a TOS and with any spamming they would be shut down instantly.

Curious with the #'s in your sig?

I think it would be a completely different ball game. We do not allow any form of adult content because different countries and even different places in some countries have different laws regarding pornography.

All moral issues aside... you could end up in real legal trouble if you allow someone to host illegal material.

CDhost,

Yeah I understand the legal issues but if you put in your TOS that illegal content is strictly disallowed how is that any different then is someone hosts an illegal site on your servers?

For instance you dont allow Adult sites... but if a site signed up and started serving adult content then you would close their account how would this be any different if someone did this on an adult host?

Not disagreeing with you just trying to fiqure some things out...

Also, I like your site very clean and professional... :D

Thanks...

It's not really any different... but in the end you will be held accountable for your clients actions by your upline provider... as they will to theirs.

Simply put if you allow adult content you will open the doors to this type of activity. If you strictly prohibit it you will see far less. Saying "we allow legal pornography" and "we do not allow any adult content whatsoever" are two different things... and what is legal is up to speculation depending on the client's locale.

I'm not saying it's impossible... just presents more of a challenge to a webhost. We prefer not to offer adult content. Some web hosts do...

"All moral issues aside"

I don't think hosting has anything to do with moral issues. When you choose a profession, in my opinion you're supposed to handle it professionally. Morality and Profession don't mix. That's like being a christian doctor and not wanted to operate on a muslim defendant. However, that's just my opinion.

From what I've heard and from thinking about the reasons why someone wouldn't want to allow an adult site. I think it's more because of the bandwidth issue. Adult sites use a lot of bandwidth. Considering what you would pay for an adult site for hosting, you'd be better off just getting a dedicated server.

Yeah I agree I guess I one was open up to adult content they would have to have some very good legal documents on what is legal and what is not...

One of the main adult hosts in the industry is XXX Hosting, well I believe they are anyway :eek: , they seem to put it quite simply what they approve and what they don't:

https://secure.xxxwebhosting.com/order/index.php

I guess it just goes into what you want do deal with.

Also what are your refund policies if they break your TOS?
For me I would guess it would have to Immediate Cancel w/o refund.

If you have moral issues with the adult industry that is a little different than not wanting to help someone of a different religion.

I don't think letting morals interfere with business is a bad thing. On the contrary, I think more business people, politicians, educators and citizens should put their morals before their careers and priorities.

Without morals where would we be? If you have no moral problem with pornography that's fine. In all honesty I don't either (certain circumstances aside). However, saying morality does not have a place in business is rediculous.

I agree with you CDhost on the moral aspect, if politicians had morals the world would probably be a better place :D

What I meant was in the sense of not allowing something just because you don't like it or agree with it.

I don't think that's professional. I don't want to turn vhedesigns topic into a moral discussion though, so i'll stop here.

How is a breach of TOS dealt with? I mean with the person who provides the service for the hosting company. Say for example your client violates the TOS, you ban him. Two more clients do the same thing. Would any action be taken against the hosting company by the people above them.

You would have to look at your TOS with your upline provider. Most will not take any action if you take prompt action and remove the questionable content and suspend the account. Some are strict though, and may suspend your account. Better to check with your upline provider to make sure.

You will have more problems with spam, violation of terms of service, and abuse when someone is trying to crack passwords and so forth.

You will also have to rethink your pricing since adult hosts obviously use a very large amount of bandwidth.

You will also have to deal more with optimization and resource usage..

It's a tougher biz :)

JDT

not to be rude about it, but i design and operate several adult sites and agree with many of you about spam and traffic and TOS breaches, but adult host on the majority charge LESS than non adult, way less..... I am talking about rackshack prices with managed services alot of the time... full service to noc any time with all the help you need.. if you do accept adult you will have to be cheaper and have more staff.. if anyone doesnt believe me I will post many of their urls here.. as a matter of fact, my provider for my hosting (resell) is a adult host!

The majority charge less?

yes the majority due.. of course since i am into it i know who to look for, not just the run of the mill start ups the charge the same as reg hosting.. if you get a list of the adult host that have been around a while and are well known, you will see they have very cheap prices and better equip with more staff

as a example, i could go to just about any adult host and ask for a semi ded or ded server and get 40gb hard drive, 400 gigs trans and more for about 150 - 200 a month managed, can you beat that on reg.. almost no. I also could get about any cp i wanted with that.

check out

cologroup.com
calpop.com
datahosters.com
blackseven.com
eliteplanets.com
likewhoa.com (hosting section)
westmaster.com
....
again i could ask for it and get, they dont always advertise those deals. I can get more if needed, but since I am at work (reg job) i dont want them noticing I am posting about porn!

I personally allow adult websites. About 90% of the sites that I host are adult sites. I give them a low price and they refer more adult sites to me. So...MO MONEY!! MO MONEY!! MO MONEY!!

Lol, the name says it all! YOU EVIL MAN! :)

As far as hosting is concerned, adult is same as main stream.

There are many differences though. You will first want to make sure your providers allow adult hosting. Most majors do. Second, you want to make sure you have the resources available to service these customers. They typically require better hardware and much more bandwidth.

I would also recommend keeping your adult customers separate from your main stream. Meaning, different IP blocks, different network connections, etc. This way if one of your adult customers is attacked, it doesn't disrupt your main stream clients.

Another thing to keep in mind, in my experience, a higher percentage of adult hosts are not professional business people. Some are very legit and honorable and can be great customers. Unfortunately for all, the scumbags out there can ruin it for everyone else. Watch your exposure and don't let them get behind in payments or owe you more than you can afford to lose. (No one can afford to lose but you don't want a scumbag who runs out on you with a $5 or 10K bill to put you out of business.)

Adult customers typically use much more bw therefore increasing your exposure. Do you homework, set up the customer correctly, make sure they understand your policies regarding payment and constantly watch your back.

The adult industry is what makes the Internet what it is. Without their volume of bw, many of the bw companies wouldn't be around or at least wouldn't have the networks they do have.

That being said, if you don't have a problem with the industry, you can make good money there. Competition is everywhere. Provide a good service at a fair price and you will earn customers.

Good luck.

They typically require better hardware and much more bandwidth.

I think that is the meat of the issue right there. Seems to me a lot of these hosting companies over sell their bandwidth. If they hosted adult sites, chances are they wouldn't be able to oversell as much, and this would affect their bottom line.

Of course I could be wrong in any of this. What do I know anyways? :D

Originally posted by vhedesigns
Thanks!

Yeah I fimilar with the spam issue, we would be getting a TOS and with any spamming they would be shut down instantly.

Curious with the #'s in your sig?

Yeah I tried telling that to the guy that sent out 900k porn spams from my server last week and if I did not catch it in the time I did would have sent out another 400k left in the queue.. I email his and told him he had broken the rules and he was very very naughty and for this I would have to shut his site down.. his reply was "Who gives a $%^&"

Once they do there business on your server they dont really care what happens I have noticed there is sometimes not even an actual site.. Then you always have the option of charging thier credit card per your TOS "spam" fees but they always do a chargeback VISA, MC and Discover don't care what he did on your server.

Trust me I have found it to be a lose lose situations..

Just my 2c best of luck whatever you decide.

I run allow adult sites, and have roughly 90% of my customers that are adult sites. In all honesty these folks are no different than the mainstream sites I host. In some cases they do use more bandwidth, but in some cases my mainstream sites use more. All the folks I deal with are just businessman out to make a buck is all, the work hard like the rest of us, just in a different business.

As for moral issues, you can't really have any in this business, to many things to get moral about, myself I run my own adult sites, and my hosting business grew out of that and the ability to find a good host for a low cost, so I started my own.

As to what OKIHost says, that is why you always check to make sure their is a site attached and always make sure they know of your TOS, and make it solid and concrete that you don't put up with that kind of thing, I have on two occasions terminated sites for TOS violations, and charged them for those violations as stated in my TOS, no complaints, they broke the rules and knew it and didn't fight it. Maybe I just have gotten a better class of customers is all.