[Jonaid]

Hey all,

I've just got a quick query. I've seen a few posts about offering completely free hosting. No banners/popups and no forum posts. I've always been taught that nothing is ever free so iI'm just wondering what do the owners gain from offering this?

Thanks

Jonaid

[Rahxie]

I was thinking that the owners of these types of hosts are hoping that their site will get well known then they can eventually start to offer paid hosting/upgrades to their customers and because of how popular they have got then they'll get a lot of customers rather than just appearing from no where as a paid host.

For those that are planning on hosting people with no ads/forum posts for years then I'm not sure they will actually make anything apart from respect from others for allowing them to use their server.

[Jonaid]

Thanks for the reply

I was thinking along those lines but i didn't think i was right. Its a long shot

[Bahrian]

Very true!

When Namezero started its services in year 2000 they did the same. They did it to the extent that they were giving free TLDs (Top Level Domains) and people were getting their .coms, .net etc. for free Strange & Interesting rite?

And then they launched their sister company MyDomain & introduced paid hosting & domain registration and stopped giving away free domains. So it happens like that. To make your brand popular and to attract customers these companies (the one with some good money) introduce free services initially and then they start their actual business i.e. paid services. Brinkster.com also followed the same strategy and there are many other names which offered free services in the start and then started selling their services.

[hosting4fun]

Not always true because then there are some like me who is not in free hosting business but offer free hosting to people for two reasons.

1. I know they will not pay (or afford to pay).
2. My company has bought space in bulk and therefore still has enough unused space. So rather than keeping it unused, let someone enjoy it

[uploadpic]

People can rely on having clients view and click on adverts on their websites or could use an affiliate system to pay for the hosting for example. You could offer "free web hosting" although the user may have to register to ebay earning you $10, that $10 could only be for 100mb and therefore be profitable.

[ZendURL]

My site makes 90% of its revenue on the main page ads and forums ads alone.

[webhostingratis]

And how much is that? does it covert your expences?

[ZendURL]

My revenue details are private, and I will not share them. However it certainly makes me a profit or else I wouldn't still be in business!

[CoreFusion]

I'm in the same boat as ZendURL.