Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Running a free web host

[jamilv]

How exactally would I go about running a totaly free web host?

[Derrick]

That is a very tough question to ask of us. Sure we could list out exactly what to do. Your best bet is to search the forums.

Some things to consider:

1) How are you going to pay for the server(s)?

2) Do you know how to manage a server? You cannot hire an admin when you have a small budget and free hosts have really small budgets.

3) Do you have invetment capital because it will be expensive to get started.

There is plenty more to consider but thats a start

Derrick

[fuse1982]

what benifit will you get to become a free web host?

if you got money to burn, go rackshack buy 10 servers, start a website that says offer 100mb free space with unlimited transfer, and use auto signup form, that's it.

[Coach]

Totally free and you get nothing in return?

Win the lottery. Buy equipment. Hire staff. Give it away.

Or if you are referring to running a free webhost and generate revenue from other things such as advertising, you should know that it is not 1998 anymore. Free hosting is not a profitable business model, because as all those multi-million dollar dot coms found out, you can't make billions by giving away everything.

[Ronald_Craft]

http://illusionfxnet.com

my friend runs that. no clue how he does it for free but check it out and maybe drop him an email.

[dpendor]

You probably are now the one responsible for getting your friend terminated. His adsense income is probably toast now as I am sure someone is going to complain to google now.

This is why Google Adsense is a temporary solution only until the public finds out where the useless traffic is coming from and complains that they are spending up to 25.00 a click from bots
and end users who are clicking to generate revenue and not interested in the sites goods and services.


quote from that host mentioned above

"Current IFX Stats
Posted by Lancing on Wednesday, October 29th 2003 06:31 PM

Hopefully this post will encourage the IFX public to click more Google Ads as it has started to slow down the last couple days. We are currently ranked 53,815 today by Alexa.com. Below is the latest update from Webalizer on IFX's site cPanel:"

He blatently asks the public to click ads, this is a violation of terms in most sites TOS, I am not aware if it in google nor care.. just making a point. since i wondered myself how he making money

Here again is another beg

"So far we have collected $666.59 since starting the ads the 22nd of October. This is fantastic, but if you want more services and servers to reduce the unbelievable amount of server load that we have been experiencing lately, we have to keep clicking on these ads."

[ozzie123]

Well... I can afford the $49/mo for a server (a low level server...) for a free hosting anyway.

Do you guys know what's the spec of yahoo's free webhosting (geocities)?

[ajiabs]

Apart from the business side of free hosting you need to think what kind of customers will you attract. There will be many genuine clients. But there will be a lot of spammers too. Unless you go with datacenter okay with frequent spam complaints, this will not be so smooth.

[Derrick]

Ozzie,

Can I ask you why you want to start a free hosting company?

When with a little more effort and time you can start up a business with income potential?

Derrick

[jamilv]

I have benn helped so many times, so I wanna help others

[WorldNet]

If you are really interested in starting a free host here is some software that will allow you to run a free hosting system.

http://www.xpanel.org/

It is pretty affordable in comparison to some of the other free hosting software that's out there.

I agree with some of the previous comments though. Most free hosts go bust. Even the adult free hosts are dying off and those guys did actually make money off their ads. It's tough to provide a free service when people are not clicking on the adds. If you can upsell them once you have them that's another story but I think a lot of people that are with free hosts rarely upgrade.

[Joseph_M]

Just make sure you put ads on your clients pages, and ensure they get enough hits to actually pay for their hosting (i.e. do established sites only).

[apollo]

not profitable nowadays, as people already posted.... still many free hosts around...

[webadpro]

I wanna make my own too... it's Almost done... but... it will work...

[AdWatcher-Boris]

The only way that I would see a free hosting business model work out is if a regular hosting company offers small, limited accounts (even if it has no ads - just a simple "hosted by..." link at the bottom) and counts on the fact that at least a portion of these accounts will upgrade to paid plans somewhere down the line.

Technically, that's what 1&1 did (to a certain extend) and it seems to be working out for them just fine.

CI Host, on the other hand, recently launched a promotion where all web developers could get a free hosting account with them, as long as they referred 2 paid clients per year. I have no doubts that this system will also work quite well for them, as there are a ton of designers, programmers, etc. that are doing this part-time and could appreciate a free account.

Boris