Free hosting strategy

[charlesgan]

(seem like its the right place to post this here)

i am very new to free hosting service, and its a very tricky business as i seen. Here is what i 'planning'
(not promoting myself, i not yet have this service)...

"100MB of free hosting space, 1GB bandwidth, cpanel, fantastico, pop email, Mysql, PHP for sure, etc etc. But, with ads on footer, no other ads, no forum posting. Will this free hosting be attractive enough?

...and As per your experience or opinion, how many signup will i gain per mth??

[Adam]

Your package will be attractive to quite a few people. You said Cpanel which is that magic word everyone seems to look for. Your sign ups will depend on how well you promote. You're an FWS member so thats a good start. It will also depend on how good your service is. If your servers are slow, people won't recommend using your service.

Be extra careful when offering php as a feature in your free accounts. Phishers like to take advantage of that feature all too often. Many data centers are pretty strict when it comes to hosting phishing sites and can slap you with heavy fines. So be extra careful and monitor your users content frequently. Sooner or later you will know which accounts can be trusted and which ones can not be trusted.

[TSO]

I would say you could gain at least 100 users a month. Having ads will put a topper on your growth (maybe a good thing), but because they're in the footer, you'll likely be Ok.

[Gipo_dinamia]

But 1 GB bandwidth is so little.

[brutetal]

Thats why as you grow hopefully the more you can give.

[kirby145]

Say that users can request more space and bandwidth if they run out.

[Darknight]

But 1 GB bandwidth is so little.

alot of people using free hosts wont even use that.

[AMC]

true, i was running a community a while back with 250 members and a full site, and i never really went over the limit ( cept with a couple of months)

[arizonadream]

But 1 GB bandwidth is so little.

I Gb for free hosting is just great. How could you expect more? As far as I understood there'll be no ads on the sites or posting required for hosting services?

[h0ster]

I Gb for free hosting is just great. How could you expect more? As far as I understood there'll be no ads on the sites or posting required for hosting services?

No there will be ads on the footer, make sure your site looks good, thats my advice.

[Adwords]

Do what other free service do. Advertise on site such as freewebspace if you have to budget.

[Kwek]

That plan is not bad, 100MB Space and 1GB Bandwidth should be enough for most free sites. If you are running a popular community and using free hosting, be prepared for the worst. Get a paid host if your site eats up too much bandwidth, you should be able to afford it from the ad revenue if you get that much traffic. Unless you're hosting a downloads' site, you will rarely use up more than 1GB.