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  1. #1
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    Question Free Hosting not allowed on Varhosting Reseller?

    I was in the process of ordering one of the varhosting reseller packages, while I was about to click processing the order I had a read through their acceptable usage policy and found this

    Free Email / Hosting Sites
    We do not permit the free giving of POP email accounts or the issuing of free hosting. This includes near free (1 penny per year for instance).
    I planned on using this reseller package to offer basic free hosting packages for those looking to use the service.
    what would be the difference if I offered it as a trial period instead of advertising it as free hosting?

    Can a varhosting clarify this for me...online ssupport are all busy.

    thank you

  2. #2
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    I would stop trying to find a way around this and find a host that allows it. There is a good reason that this host does not allow free hosting, and it is b/c of the problems associated with such a thing, mainly SPAM!

    Personally I think that you should consider forgetting the free hosting idea and do something else.
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  3. #3
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    I didnt say I was looking for a way around it, I asked what the difference between offering webhosting trial for a period of "X" days
    and free hosting.

    I asked for clarification on this AUP because I intend to offer a free trial period on my hosting services.


    thanks all the same.

  4. #4
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    I doubt they would limit you from offering a "free trial" however your best bet would be to contact them via email. You may want to make sure to read everything in their TOS as well, you never know when your host may want to control everything related to your hosting company (as a reseller).

  5. #5
    It makes sense for them not to allow free hosting.. from what I am aware, they support your end users. Therefore, it really isn't in their interests to be supporting 500(or whatever) free hosting clients on a small reseller account for 10 bucks a month.
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  6. #6
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    Our Terms & Conditions actually has a similar clause too. However, it is not such a great idea to allow free hosting anyway. Free hosting tends to have high volumes of sign-ups and the reseller server will fill up with high load and possibly spam due to the fact that hosting is free. Also, if you intend to offer CPanel, you will get even more sign-ups. If you want to offer a free trial, that should be no problem with most companies. Just simply send out an e-mail to the company for a clarification.
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  7. #7
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    icontact:

    We don't allow free hosting - this was a recently added clause so there a few customers of ours that sell free hosting from the past that we've honored.

    Free hosting is the extreme version of overselling and Just Not Reseller Hosting Friendly. It brings on spammers, dozens and dozens of mini-discussion boards, and a slew of other problems. In a nutshell, it's not nice to the other resellers on the server. :-)

    If you've signed up recently and need a refund because you assumed this was okay, please submit a ticket and we'll definitely honor this.

    Regardless of whichever reseller hosting company you go with, be careful (as you have been by reading over the AUP) since it's better to know now then later on!

    Roj
    Web Hosting? Been there. Done that.
    I am niyogi.

  8. #8
    Im agree with niyogi.

    Free hosting may produce load problems in server due to overselling, and this is a serious problem in a resellers server.

  9. #9
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    Free hosting is the extreme version of overselling
    I agree and understand that free hosting brings in more than a "fair share" of spammers and various other problem makers, but please explain how free hosting is the extreme of overselling.

  10. #10
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    Good question. My answer?

    Calculus and limits approaching zero. Massive overselling usually applies to those that have a particular resource and sell more than the resources they are alloted. "Cheapie hosts" are tagged in this manner because in order to turn a profit (or a larger one at that), they have to sell more.

    In the case of *free* hosting when the price has essentially approached "zero", there really is no limit on this. One might argue that it's because a completely business model is used (i.e. advertising etc) . But, that doesn't change the fact that there's no limit to how far they can go with selling the space to their clients. As such, in a medium that is essentially shared by other resellers, it's a version of extreme overselling if you consider that the price is a penny a month.

    Roj
    Web Hosting? Been there. Done that.
    I am niyogi.

  11. #11
    Originally posted by ldcdc
    I agree and understand that free hosting brings in more than a "fair share" of spammers and various other problem makers, but please explain how free hosting is the extreme of overselling.
    Typically when a host allows overselling on cPanel, there are no quantified limits to how much they can oversell. There's basically a checkbox in WHM where you checkmark "overselling" or not. So if they do allow overselling, they might be assuming that their resellers will charge money for hosting, which results in a normal growth rate which can be easily controlled and monitored. With free hosting, a reseller could easily add hundreds or even thousands of accounts within weeks. This problem would apply primarily to hosts that allow unlimited domains or a very high number of domains (with the assumption that most customers will not use very many). Although the total resource usage is still limited by the overall quota limits of the reseller account, the sheer number of domains and number of people attempting to abuse their free accounts can quickly cause problems for the server. I would say THE extreme of overselling would be a host who sells "unlimited" disk/transfer reseller accounts, AND allows those resellers to offer free hosting
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  12. #12
    my question is , how do you know that a reseller offers free hosting?
    how do you know whether the clients paid to the reseller?
    This is really sth difficult to judge

    But free hosting service really take much more than what you get
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  13. #13
    Originally posted by sober
    my question is , how do you know that a reseller offers free hosting?
    how do you know whether the clients paid to the reseller?
    This is really sth difficult to judge

    But free hosting service really take much more than what you get
    If you notice a massive increase to a resellers account, then go to their website and notice that they are offering free hosting. If they are offering free hosting, they typically advertise it. If they're just hosting their friends and family for free that's typically not a problem.
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  14. #14
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    As such, in a medium that is essentially shared by other resellers, it's a version of extreme overselling if you consider that the price is a penny a month.
    In all honesty, I've never run a free hosting service. However, most free hosting is far from free, the goal still being to make a profit. How much profit can be made from free hosting, only a free host can tell us. We must remember though that free hosts often offer a bare bones hosting solution, with basic support, so their costs are truly lower.

    Also, when you have "paid" hosts giving 100GB of data transfer for $5, 1GB of data tranfer given for "free" is not that bad. What I'm saying is that (IMO) we cannot put the tag on free hosts as the extreme oversellers.

    They are high risk customers for you so you must do something about that, but you cannot blame them for overselling as long as they're only using what they bought from you and using the overselling feature that you have enabled for them.

  15. #15
    Originally posted by lifehost
    If you notice a massive increase to a resellers account, then go to their website and notice that they are offering free hosting. If they are offering free hosting, they typically advertise it. If they're just hosting their friends and family for free that's typically not a problem.
    Yes, you are right,
    but offten, it will take too much time too confirm
    whether it's a free hosting or not
    I Love WHT

  16. #16
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    However, most free hosting is far from free, the goal still being to make a profit. How much profit can be made from free hosting, only a free host can tell us. We must remember though that free hosts often offer a bare bones hosting solution, with basic support, so their costs are truly lower.

    It's free for the customer of a free hosting provider but far from free from the provider's point of view. That's exactly my point. I'm not sure how much money is in free hosting (although Google Adsense's exorbitant payouts and the advent of several emerging free hosting players seems to indicate some kind of lucrativeness) but my own experience pair with conservativeness leads me to believe that they have to work just a wee bit harder than a paid hosting company (i.e. put more accounts on a server).

    There's the connotative and denotative definition of "overselling". I mean a free hosting provider as an "extreme overseller" in the connotative sense: that they overall pack more accounts into a reseller account than paid hosting providers do.

    Roj
    Web Hosting? Been there. Done that.
    I am niyogi.

  17. #17
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    Originally posted by ldcdc
    In all honesty, I've never run a free hosting service. However, most free hosting is far from free, the goal still being to make a profit. How much profit can be made from free hosting, only a free host can tell us. We must remember though that free hosts often offer a bare bones hosting solution, with basic support, so their costs are truly lower.
    Agreed, but when it comes down to VARHosting offering support to them clients, it would certainly increase the amount of support tickets they receive.

  18. #18
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    so much skepticism about offers of free hosting. I was hosted on a free hosting offer for 12 months and I was thankful for every single day that I was with that provider and if the owner didnt unload the business to a clown who didnt know how to manage it after taking ownership then my website would still be hosted with them and would have paid for it too.

    All this talk about overselling, it doesnt make sense to me, how could you label it as extreme overselling when the package was created like that in the first place and in fact, listing it's "overselling allowed" as one its selling points. How could a reseller oversell more than his alotted package? It seems to me I would be crucified if I used what I'm entitled to, given the fact that I paid for it in the first place.

  19. #19
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    Overselling is really just half of the problem icontact. It does attract spammers and other notorious activity as well. An example: a free-host that we've honored our policies for was unknowingly hosting a site that infringed on the DMCA (copyright act) and jeopardized several other sites on the server when the datacenter gave us a 24 hour notice to have the content removed.

    The owner of the account replied that it is particularly hard to monitor all the activity that happens under his account. Understandable but then imagine our responsibility. :-)

    Roj
    Web Hosting? Been there. Done that.
    I am niyogi.

  20. #20
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    Agreed, but when it comes down to VARHosting offering support to them clients, it would certainly increase the amount of support tickets they receive.
    That is correct John, and a perhaps yet another valid reason for Varhosting to not allow free hosting.

    I mean a free hosting provider as an "extreme overseller" in the connotative sense: that they overall pack more accounts into a reseller account than paid hosting providers do.
    Overselling is really just half of the problem icontact.
    With respect to your service, overselling should not be a problem at all as long as the customer is still within his quotas. A reseller may pack the account to the brim. It is his prerogative. You have embraced a certain business model -- it comes with its positives and its negatives.

    That said, I wholeheartedly agree that having free hosts on your servers is a risk for you (from other points of view). You are also free to put any limitations on the way reseller accounts can be used, for any reasons (stated or unstated, valid or not). It is your business!

  21. #21
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    Attracting spammers, I can agree with that but surely one(webhost) would have measures in place in choosing who they host when they are offering a free hosting service.

    The increase in support would only increase if the webhost made it known that there is a third party support system available and I certainly wouldnt put that burden on Varhosting expecting them to support clients that are on free hosting - that's just silly.

    Anyways thanks for all the replies I have read and understood every single one of your opinions, I appreciate it.

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