How Do Free W/H's Stay Alive?

Alright, I know that ppl. often offer free webhosting but I just want to ask how do they offer it. Like not in the actually way, but don't lose money when they offer freeweb hosting? How do hosts afford that?

Can anyone help?

I sit in the street and beg for money.
joke...
I try to get the best servers I can, bear in mind that its not just the cost that can affect your overall profit, decent management is a must!
then, dont offer stupid packages, we dont offer much at all.
do something different, this attracts people.
get a ad provider that isn't google. free hosts attract fake clicks like flies (users think they help out) get a ad provider that will simply deduct the clicks instead of banning you.
find other revenue streams - hottweelz and I have said this 1bn times now, but the internet ad industry is going to collapse. dont stick around to watch it.

Most free hosts relie on ads to keep them alive, I agree that ads are the most powerful money system.

Yeah, but some free hosts don't use ads. How do they work?

no, all free hosts have ads, just in different places.
usually if hosts are ad free they require forum posting and have ads there.
USUALLY. we dont:P

ZoomCities has been around for more than a year without depending on ads or payment/donation from ZoomCities Members. :) We now have 3 different servers Xeons and Opteron. How do ZoomCities survive? I funded it privately, I have a full time job as an IT Project Manager, I also host some of my local clients website in one of our server.

My goal is not to earn money from ZoomCities, my goal is to established an IT Community and provide high quality FREE cPanel Hosting to those who are in need, to those who are deserving and to those who are active members of the ZoomCities IT Community. I also provide FREE WHM Reseller Accounts to the Moderators of the Community and to some active members very soon. :D Reason why I do this? I was once one of them too, "in need of a great free host" :)

Visit our website to find out more about ZoomCities! ;)

Wow, that is very nice of you. It's good to see some caring individuals here on FWS.

I give free hosting. Basically because "I Can". I have a stable job and am running close to 50yrs of age. I just like helping people, if possiable.

Free hosting services make profit from hosting your website. They can make profit either by;

-Placing banner ads on your webpages.
-Placing banner ads on the administration pages which you use to upload files.
-By sending you email from advertiser.
-Many new free hosts require forum posting, which helps in getting free content for their website.

-Placing banner ads on the administration pages which you use to upload files.

In other words. In cPanel.

This is stupid. LOL! :P I don't need to tell you why. :-)

Needlehost, well thought out.. yes we're going to see some BIG changes in the Internet Ad industry, real soon...

In fact, this morning on Bloomberg Radio about 30 minutes ago, JP Morgan (I believe) cut Google from Strong Buy to OutPerform because they lowered the Price Target from $550 to $475.

Google releases their earnings soon and I think some hard truths will be out.

Let's not forget that Google (as rich as they are) takes in 80% of their Income via Adsense.

Just remember you heard it here first.

As for the answer to Free Hosting: For now we use Adsense, but Adsense income is play money, especially with what I just said.

Free hosting doesn't require as much support. Limit the users to Ticket Systems for support. Forum Support... Limit the amount of addon domains/parked domains/DB, etc etc etc... then when they want more. They upgrade to paid hosting.

We're always re-investing Profits, it makes for good Tax issues as well ;)

As for Google Adsense supported Free Hosting (or any Publishing of Ads for that fact) Remember, you heard it here first.

Free Hosting:

-Ads on their site
-Ads on members' site(maybe)
-Ads on Control Panel(might not be cPanel, how about xPanel lol?)
-Another source of income(fultime job, halftime job, etc)
-Sponsors
-Sell Adspace on their site
-Donations

I might start my own free host when I am 18, I dun wanna be called a "kiddie free host"!:P And then I will be more knowledgeable in the area of how they sustain the free hosting service.

We're always re-investing Profits, it makes for good Tax issues as well ;)


care to explain?

graphics underground
www.gfx-underground.com

runs off me!

No ads, no forum posting required and I just pay for the servers that we use!

I dont believe that people should pay for things that they cant afford.

Help others and someone will help you back

thats my motto about free hosting :D

care to explain?

I dont think he can explain it anymore.. :o

Zac

i have ads on the members sites and i also have many others sites with ads on them

A correctly run free host will give a profit, not a loss.

A correctly run free host will give a profit, not a loss.

Maybe you can define the word "correctly" so some newbie hosting providers can understand and will know how to make it work. :)

Zac

I gave my free host a fair crack at the whip, and unfortunatley for me it didn't work out. Ads were small, very small, and the users we had were great, but we simply didn't have enough. Due to the 12yr olds demand for cPanel and 100gb of bandwidth, I simply couldn't attract enough people.

That being said, I loved what I did and would be interested in starting up another one... *gasp*

I started my free forum host, WebringAmerica (http://www.webringamerica.com) because at one point in time I could not find decent free forum hosting without forced ads. So I created my own free forum host that does not force ads on my visitors. I decided to do this because I had purchased a hosting account with more than adequate hard drive space and bandwidth and I had no plans to ever use all of it. This way I feel like I not wasting my excess space and bandwidth and I am also helping people out.

The host is small (around 7 forums currently hosted) but I feel it is a valuable service to anyone who wants to use it. For some people it's all about making the internet better whereas with others it's all about the money. I hate people that are all about the money. They make life suck.
:beer:

BMR777

The host is small (around 7 forums currently hosted) but I feel it is a valuable service to anyone who wants to use it. For some people it's all about making the internet better whereas with others it's all about the money. I hate people that are all about the money. They make life suck.

If you are in any way refering to my post. I would just like to add this;

If a free host is not making a profit, how long untill he decides that he can be doing much better things with the time and shuts down the free host? About 2 months.

If a host is making a profit, it means they will be more interested in the hosting and support.

Well, there have to be limits with what free ad-supported hosts will do. Also, I believe that in life you can't let money drive what you do. Look at people that work in a job they hate just to make money. Are they really happy?

I'm not saying that all ad-supported hosts are bad. In fact, ads can help grow a free host. I have observed, however, some shady practices by free web hosts that serve ads. The best example of this is CJB. They are a VERY popular free web host but it clearly puts money above their users. They attempt to install adware onto users' PCs without consent by attempting to trick their users. When it gets to the point when you forget about the user and put money above all else that's when things go bad.

Other free hosts that display ads may also be unknowingly contributing to the decaying state of the internet. Some of the ads on Google Adwords are downright dangerous from a security perspective, linking to adware and spyware sites. While the hosting company may not be aware of this, they are, along with Google, contributing to someone's profiting on an uninformed user who is tricked or bated into downloading adware.

Also, to this statement:
A correctly run free host will give a profit, not a loss.

There doesn't always have to be a profit or a loss, sometimes it can just be a kind jesture. You can run a free host with excess space. If you own a server with X GB free and have more bandwidth than you will ever use, and you are using it for something else already, than why not give away the extra free space? You don't have to gain or lose money. It's like someone who owns 4 cars. You can only drive one car at a time, so why not put the others to good use. As long as you paid for the gas, and you know you won't use it all before it all dries up (hosting fees) why not let someone else use your car? It doesn't hurt you.

BMR777

Because it's business. To stay in business, you have to utilize all of your available resources. And free hosts must make money some way. Often it is through advertisements.

Because it's business. To stay in business, you have to utilize all of your available resources. And free hosts must make money some way. Often it is through advertisements.

I disagree completely. Like said before it could be a nice thing to do for other people. It depends on the motivation to run a free webhost.

If you call this business then don't talk about free webhosting. Business=Money and Free webhost=FREE

I do not make any money with my free webhosting but I learn a lot from it... that is my motivation, it also helps me in my full time job.

And as long as I have a job, then my free webhosting will stay (FOR FREE, no advertisements or posts needed)

Getting in touch with other people around the world is nice too, making them happy with something they could not afford is great. And again... all the tools are already in place to setup a free webhost without the need of being afraid that it cannot last for a few years.
So paying bills is not a problem, the hardware runs and the Internet bill will be paid anyway.

FREE still exists in this corrupted world of money :ditsy2:

Problem is that giving free webhosting invites far too many "bad people" with "bad intentions". So you must choose your users wisely. And not only that... being warned or even being threatened by paid hosting companies is absurd... But I see that as a compliment that I am running a good Free Webhost for nearly 1 year and many years to come.

Kind regards,
PaulP.

Personally, I dont make any money out of the free host im running now. I also dont intend to make money, for a long time at least, because I believe 728x90 ads really clutter up my website and forums. For the time being, im quite content running it as a service to people, I actually get enjoyment out of it :).

I host out of my own pocket. I am 16 and have a job selling advertisements to NetOsmosis(.com)'s customers.
I am flexable with my ads. (they can choose any style floating, static, or geocities style)
If they put 2 ad styles up, I dubble there space
If they put all 3 and I get money from clicks on there site I 4x there space.
If someone passes an "English Test" they can request ads free web hosting accounts. The "English Test" is they must be able to talk to me via Skype (Microphone, not text) or allow me to mail them a code to give to me(to prove they live in the US)

Beleive it or not, 1/2 of my free accounts are Ad Free.
I do loose $10 / month.
I make up for it by selling PHP scripts (custom)
So thats how my site works.

For most free hosting companies, it's an interesting experiment to see how much money they can make cramming as many customers on a server and running Google AdSense on them. Sorry guys - it's the harsh truth. :-D

Roj