Free Hosting in 2009

[TSO]

It looks like competition will only heat up further in 2009, as more free hosts remove ads from user pages and concentrate on out-doing one another in features. Free hosting continues to encroach upon paid shared hosting at an alarming rate as more users seem to realize many free hosts provide basic service that matches that offered by paid hosts.

That's my view. :)

How do you guys see 2009 shaping up?

[Erizo]

Uhm... free oversellers xD More dynamic "pay-for-hosting" methods, and one more thing i see, it's newbie free hosts, don't take me wrong, but i've seen a lot of requests like this:



Request for: reseller hosting
What for: giving free hosting
plz guyz i want to be the hostz and pwn all other! luv u! <3


Which most likely result on free hosts going down overnight. We'll see later in 2009 what else i brings :P

[YourData1st]

as for me, I've been mostly silent with only minimal advertising, but once I hit I hit the 1 year mark, that will help me edge out the newbies.

[JonnyH]

I think the free hosting market will keep going on its decline. Stupid hosts are offering too much for too little and it's changing the ideas around free hosts. Stupid people are asking for too much and it's causing the free hosting market to fill up with immature hosts that don't know what they're doing and will soon go down because they're running on a free reseller or run out of funds.

To be honest, it is one of the reason I turned to the software side of things. The market is bare and it could be easily conquered and run by one person atm. My goal. Free Hosting is too hard to keep up.

[shakir]

Free hosting continues to encroach upon paid shared hosting at an alarming rate as more users seem to realize many free hosts provide basic service that matches that offered by paid hosts.


But now payed hosting also like free very less price.. and reliable too

[YourData1st]

I think the free hosting market will keep going on its decline. Stupid hosts are offering too much for too little and it's changing the ideas around free hosts. Stupid people are asking for too much and it's causing the free hosting market to fill up with immature hosts that don't know what they're doing and will soon go down because they're running on a free reseller or run out of funds.

I agree, customers always seem to bite on the high resources offered by free hosts in return for nothing. Offering sanctuary to customers screwed over by too good to be true hosts probably will be the best method to pursue for hosts that have been around for awhile.

[Conscript]

...as more free hosts remove ads from user pages and concentrate on out-doing one another in features.

So how are they making money or even staying alive?

[TSO]

So how are they making money or even staying alive?

That is a good question. The answer is that many have found alternative revenue streams through monthly newsletters sent to users, paid hosting upgrades, or ads on the host's own homepage (or, most often, a combination of these three and other monetization methods).

[stuffradio]

I think the free hosting market will keep going on its decline. Stupid hosts are offering too much for too little and it's changing the ideas around free hosts. Stupid people are asking for too much and it's causing the free hosting market to fill up with immature hosts that don't know what they're doing and will soon go down because they're running on a free reseller or run out of funds.

To be honest, it is one of the reason I turned to the software side of things. The market is bare and it could be easily conquered and run by one person atm. My goal. Free Hosting is too hard to keep up.

Yup, I'm on the website/software side of things. I haven't personally ran a free host, but I was a community manager at a free host for around 6-8 months. A few members on this forum were a part of that community as well. :)

[theraptor]

how would you recommend that a new host get to the "reliable" mark?

[TSO]

theraptor, it's really about proving yourself, and this takes time. Each day your site stays open adds a mark of legitimacy and trust in the eyes of your users. The less downtime you have, the better. A positive presence on industry forums (like FWS) can also help tremendously. But mostly, it's a longevity thing.

[Upload Spot]

I'm going to say that the economy will make some people go into Free Hosting more, but I think it's going to be a bit tougher to turn around a profit for the actual hosts.

[TaoPhoenix]

So how are they making money or even staying alive?

Are they staying alive? I'm starting to see that some of them never meant to, only collect "client batches" as trade bait.

[TaoPhoenix]

I agree, customers always seem to bite on the high resources offered by free hosts in return for nothing. Offering sanctuary to customers screwed over by too good to be true hosts probably will be the best method to pursue for hosts that have been around for awhile.

Can we all urge the Swedetastic/Auss-ome Powers to restore that database on the other side of the fence? That's where the durable hosts will begin to be noticeable - both by being around on searches and by ratings, by reviewers who themselves need to be meta-moderated to slow down review-gaming.

The huge weaknesss of rolling posts of offers is that "zombifying" a topic is discouraged... like the followup to a host 6 months later.

Anyone know what happened to Efil Leiv and his Water Seven? Smart guy, but he was big on collecting personal info "to build strong communities of trust". Now Water Seven is inactive at best, which is how security breaches will happen in Web 2.1.

[TaoPhoenix]

I think the free hosting market will keep going on its decline. Stupid hosts are offering too much for too little and it's changing the ideas around free hosts. Stupid people are asking for too much and it's causing the free hosting market to fill up with immature hosts that don't know what they're doing and will soon go down because they're running on a free reseller or run out of funds.

To be honest, it is one of the reason I turned to the software side of things. The market is bare and it could be easily conquered and run by one person atm. My goal. Free Hosting is too hard to keep up.

The market has room for about 25 solid players, and once they establish themselves, with an emergent meta-site anchored in the Net consciousness, these Fly-By-Nights will start to look like edge dealers.

[ZoomCities]

I've seen a lot of free host come and go, hundreds of them, perhaps there will be more this year 2009 ;)

2 main qualities a free host provider should have to succeed. Passion and funds :)

Zac

[[AS]Richard]

Passion and funds. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Advertising is one of the first things a potential client checks for a free host. That's why those alternative methods are being used now. :)

[JonnyH]

I've seen a lot of free host come and go, hundreds of them, perhaps there will be more this year 2009 ;)

2 main qualities a free host provider should have to succeed. Passion and funds :)

Zac
Exactly. One of points I make to a budding free hostee is that you can't set one of these up looking for a profit. They're soley a hobbie and for personal plessure.

[hamster]

Exactly. One of points I make to a budding free hostee is that you can't set one of these up looking for a profit. They're soley a hobbie and for personal plessure.

Nobody said you can't profit while having fun :P

[ZoomCities]

I think what jonny meant was, dont expect to make a profit when you start a free web host. But if you do make a profit, just consider that as a bonus. Because if you expect to make profit, you will just be disappointed and will loose your passion, that could be then the beginning of your free host's downfall.

Zac

[JonnyH]

I think what jonny meant was, dont expect to make a profit when you start a free web host. But if you do make a profit, just consider that as a bonus. Because if you expect to make profit, you will just be disappointed and will loose your passion, that could be then the beginning of your free host's downfall.

Zac
+1
Too short.

[[AS]Richard]

Solely for fun? I don't really think so...I mean, after a while you're going to need to monetize your sites instead of just pulling money out of your pocket! :D

[JonnyH]

Richard;1048235']Solely for fun? I don't really think so...I mean, after a while you're going to need to monetize your sites instead of just pulling money out of your pocket! :D
How many hosts have you seen who make a profit? Not many, at all.

Pulling money from a free host is bonus, I don't care what anyone says. A free host is a good step to go to for experience in this area. 3 years of experience certainly built me into what I am now.

For a new host to get new clients is hard, especially with the market now. You get the inexperienced hosts gaining all the clients with their ridiculous offers and then loosing them because something goes wrong in the line.

To keep free hosting you have to your finances backed, I made a bad mistake with that. You need to have a business plan sorted, backup plans and the server admin needs to be very active to keep checking up on the various threats that can occur to the server.

All this costs money and it's hard to gain that money back.

[TSO]

I must respectfully disagree, Jonny`. In the past 3 years, I've launched many free hosting services, some successful and some not. However, those that are still around (even the ones I no longer own) are doing quite well - and some of them are quite profitable. Need proof? Take a look at freewaywebhost.com, freezoka.com, 07x.net, and 900megs.com, among others. These are all free hosts that I founded, built up to be profitable, sold, and which still remain profitable.

It takes a lot of hard work, but it is definitely possible.

[JonnyH]

I must respectfully disagree, Jonny`. In the past 3 years, I've launched many free hosting services, some successful and some not. However, those that are still around (even the ones I no longer own) are doing quite well - and some of them are quite profitable. Need proof? Take a look at freewaywebhost.com, freezoka.com, 07x.net, and 900megs.com, among others. These are all free hosts that I founded, built up to be profitable, sold, and which still remain profitable.

It takes a lot of hard work, but it is definitely possible.
Never said it wasn't possible, but you just needed to be exceptionally good at it and experienced. Which I was not when was working with KwiX, I really wasn't in it for the money. Just the community and fun of it.

People like you TSO who have done this many many times will probably get a respectable profit on the hosts you set up because you know how and you've done it before. Inexperienced users who just use the P2H model and use costly cPanel servers will more than likely not without a lot of work and clients.

[dbbrock1]

I really dont think much has changed in the free hosting, shared hosting market. This kind of overselling/out doing the competition has been going on ever since I entered the market in 2001/2002. The only difference is the numbers in the plans really.