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Free Hosting .... ? Help.
ThresherHost
Member
I have a question for you guys those of you who offer shared web hosting packages do you offer a free package? If so have you had a lot of abuse or any issues? Is it worth it? I kinda feel like it's a nice gesture to show your quality of service but at the same time well, I have had 105 sign ups in 8 days of offering it with very little advertising at all. I run my site because I have 25 personal web sites that I run as a business so instead of paying someone else to host them I host them myself and pay a discounted rate to my hosting site.... My free accounts are hosted on a separate server from paid and personal web sites. I will always honor the people who have signed up for free for as long as they wish to stay or are active but I'm unsure if this model is sustainable due to the amount of sign ups in such a small period of time. My main idea here was to offer something for free of quality and get people to upgrade to a better plan in the future. I still may continue to offer it and give you updates as I progress with it... I suppose I'll be my own science project if nobody here has or does offer this to clients.
Some facts you should know:
Free Package has-
1GB Storage
cPanel
1 Domain Name
10GB Bandwidth
5 email accounts
We are less than a month old as stated above I run this purely as a hobby to offset my previous hosting nightmares with my business web sites that I can't have offline PS: that host doesn't need to be named they get enough backlash from the community already. LOL.
Lastly, I would like to thank you guys since joining I have purchased 3 vps offers from this forum and couldn't be happier and I enjoy reading the current drama being posted lately.
Comments
@FAT32 @hzr @trewq shouldn't the link to their website be snipped (or just the whole thread)?
Nice adversting. And no its not sustainable. You get mostly abuse. Make it 1 cent instead.
Kids these days have no patience to wait for their provider tags.
Sorry grandmaster I removed it. I should have known better even asking on here. Would kill you guys to actually post substance and be helpful instead of posting stuff that helps no one.
>
As stated before I won't be seeking one as I have no need for it.
He was posting something helpful of substance, though it might not have been helpful to you.
and what's your excuse?
There's no excuse for me.
I was writing something down but NVM. Let's just let the mods decide
I think it could be useful if you're just going to use it as a hobby or to learn about dealing with hosting others but in my opinion it'll be tough getting the free market to pay for upgrades and you'll really have to watch over abuse. The owner of SecureDragon ran free shared hosting for awhile (might still run it?).
It is https://afreecloud.com/ and it's out of stock right now. iirc I've seen a comment from @KuJoe that he's expending the node for more capacity for it, but not sure
https://afreecloud.com/index.php?p=about
I actually built a new server for it, but unfortunately I need to rebuild the backend for the website to make it work with multiple control panels and multiple domain names. I'm hoping to start accepting new sign-ups this month.
AWESOME! This is the guy I would like to talk to for sure. It looks to me like he's running ads on his main site to generate some sort of revenue to support the servers he's using for free sites? And he offers upgrades as do I. I would definitely like to hear about his experience and @donli @sanvit I do see he currently has suspended orders so maybe it's true you just can't sustain it I just felt as if it would be nice unique offering.
So, tell me more how many sites is it hosting? Are you getting very many upgrade to the "An Immense Cloud" package from it? As some of the people on this thread might not know and like to jump to any conclusion they can before knowing facts. I wanted to offer free hosting for about the same reason you stated because I can and I want to at the same time I have to watch costs and take care of paid clients including myself. In a little over a week I have 100+ signed up I may just have to suspend as you did until I can make room for more? In college I used a free host they blasted you with ads and spam it kinda made me want to do it differently but as stated above by a few others you have to watch abuse have you had much issue with that?
@ThresherHost
A genuine request for help (in general) should be worded as such. Instead of throwing a link that practically invites signups and appears as advertising, you might ask, "Can one provide free hosting sustainably and still make a profit?"
To address your post:
What you're doing here is nothing new (the concept of free hosting has existed for a very long time). Of course, free hosting users rarely convert to paid clients and it also comes with a whole range of abuse issues ranging from SMTP spam to proxy sites to whatever can get your server shut down. Don't ever expect any return on investment on free hosting.
In my experience, I've received requests via email that have asked me if I could provide some space on my systems to host a personal page or whatnot. Such requests usually include a purpose to why they need it and what they'll offer in return, which in turn weeds out a lot of people who might otherwise idle on it or abuse it simply based on the effort required to compose a decent email.
What I'm really saying is that you should probably hold off on providing free hosting no strings attached -- it encourages the misuse of your servers, which not only causes you headaches, but everyone else who has to deal with them (for instance, spam, etc). If you want to help the community, accept requests for hosting on the condition that they provide 200 characters for their purpose. Manually review and provision only if they give you a compelling reason to do so. Less hassle for you, less hassle for everyone else.
Well said, I removed the link 1 minute after posting - As state above I don't really need the sign ups LOL word spreads quickly apparently in the free arena.. Thank you for such a good response.
I'm suspending my free offering this discussion can be closed or deleted. Thanks everyone who helped.
No worries then. Closed, PM if want reopen