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Note to free hosts - Part 2

Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
Not sure why the other thread I made was closed, last post was only a month ago. Should be stickied ;)

#1 READ THE FORUM RULES!!!!! Right here, and usually above each forum: http://www.freewebspace.net/forums/announcement.php?f=2

#2 Do not offer unlimited/unmetered. Besides that if you read the rules it isn't allowed, it simply does not exist.

#3 Do not state ANYWHERE that you are the best, not a fly by night or the new leader in free hosting. If you need to say you are then in the words of Gordon Ramsey: You arent.

#4 Do research before even making plans. Sure you want to offer 100GB space and 100TB transfer with no file size limit/restriction to get people in, but then when you get abusers to host illegal material and therefore screw the honest people when you get an invoice from your reseller or whathaveyou that is 10X your yearly salary, well...... Also the offering ridiculous amounts then restricting file sizes/types so no one would even come within 1/100 of their plans simply makes you look ridiculous.

#5 Even if you are offshore, do not think you can announce you will allow hosting/linking to illegal stuff. I can personally guarantee every offshore host that pops up in free hosting and paid hosting that I see is looked into by myself to see if this is allowed. This goes for both your TOS and forum if you should have one. This topic is illegal in most of the world and of course not allowed in this forum.

#6: If you are a P2H or require ads for hosting, you need to state this. Misrepresentation does not look good for your host, and will quickly turn people away.

#7: Do not guarantee anything. As a free host, you have nothing to give back to a client. Sure you can add more space and transfer that he will never use, but that isn't going to reassure him of the 75% uptime or 3 days downtime now is it?

#8: Do not post paid plans, if you have them in the free section, there is a section for that. If one cannot read the difference with Free and Paid, then what confidence does that place in the minds of any prospective clients?

#9 Make sure you have operating links and full content on your website. This means no 404 errors when someone clicks on your TOS or Features pages.

#10 HAVE A WEBSITE, NOT A FORUM! Simply put if you are only a forum for signups, plans, etc you are not professional looking. Grab a free template that will link to plans, features, tos, whatever. There are several professional looking templates for FREE that you can use and make you look professional. Remember, the more professional you look by putting work into a good looking site, people are more likely to think you put an effort into providing good service. A forum only host (signups/plans/etc in the forum and domain redirects to forum) is unprofessional.

#11 If you only allow domain hosting, state this in your offer.
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You may state "Well we do not want to have copycat plans, we wish to be unique" or something of the like. Here is the ultimate result: These people who have similar plans and have been in biz for years upon years are apparently doing something right. Look at how many offer absurd and "unlimited" and see if they are still in biz. By closing down you are certainly NOT unique, but highly common. The "unique" hosts are those who can provide stable hosting and most importantly STAY IN BUSINESS.

So if you do not bother to even look at the above, the moral is, do your homework. You don't want to, then whatever, you will only screw your clients.
 
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ttb62

New Member
I know I'm a new host but I can't help to wonder why this thread should be stuck. Is the quote in the lead post new rules? Or a helpful suggestion to new free host to have a successful free host. I know a professional business model is a good practice but a good suggestion for new free host is that know that you have added the word "free" to hosting you most likely will have users that do not care about the service and abuse it. If it's not a suggestion it kind of draws the attention away from the forum rules for listing free hosting services on this forum. I guess what I'm saying is are these the rules, or are the forum rules the rules?
 
Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
They aren't rules for new hosts, more like suggestions from a member that has been around for quite some time. I couldn't even begin to count how many free hosts have gone under, let alone the ones that last a month or less.

In fact if you see the original post: http://www.freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?2239833-Note-to-new-free-hosts you will see the owner praise the thread.

Main thing is hosts do need to read the rules, hence why #1 is "Read the rules". Most hosts do not and post things against the rules. I would like to point out suggestion #3 to you: "3 Do not state ANYWHERE that you are the best, not a fly by night or the new leader in free hosting. If you need to say you are then in the words of Gordon Ramsey: You arent." I see you already proclaimed yourself the best. Last few times I have seen that, well, they left in a couple months.
 
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ttb62

New Member
Ok so there not rules I was going back to the rules to see if claiming to be the best host was in the rules. Hopefully the trend of lasting only a few months will break. Some of the suggestions seem as to be a determination of the rules. Its not clearly stated that they are suggestions. It mite be a little misleading if stuck. Maybe #7 could be stated a little differently. I agree about being careful what you guarantee. But to say "As a free host, you have nothing to give back to a client." That's claiming to be the worst host. When in all honesty WHM is resell and could actually charge for it and guarantee 75% up time and three days down time. Or does a premium WHM resell have more to give back to the client. I realize the intent of the statement but it comes across not having any faith in a free hosting provider.
 
Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
You are missing the point on #7 it seems. As a free host, what will you give your clients should you drop below the 99.9% uptime guarantee (The most common I see)? Free hosts have absolutely nothing worthwhile to "repay" clients from their guarantee, that is the point. To guarantee something when you cannot give anything back (the whole point of a guarantee) is futile. There is no claim nor representation that free hosts are garbage.

It seems you are not getting any of the suggestions that are listed. I am merely pointing out things to avoid when starting a free hosting service.
 
sander k

sander k

Well-Known Member
NLC
Why do you guys want to have so many rules?
This forum is pretty much dead without those rules at the moment.
There are only about 10-15 active users.
 
C

CS Squad

cs-squad.net
NLC
ttb62 said:
Ok so there not rules I was going back to the rules to see if claiming to be the best host was in the rules. Hopefully the trend of lasting only a few months will break. Some of the suggestions seem as to be a determination of the rules. Its not clearly stated that they are suggestions. It mite be a little misleading if stuck. Maybe #7 could be stated a little differently. I agree about being careful what you guarantee. But to say "As a free host, you have nothing to give back to a client." That's claiming to be the worst host. When in all honesty WHM is resell and could actually charge for it and guarantee 75% up time and three days down time. Or does a premium WHM resell have more to give back to the client. I realize the intent of the statement but it comes across not having any faith in a free hosting provider.
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It seems like you totally missed the point!
If you did read some of the old offer threads, there are some free host who give guaranty that the uptime is 99.9% and say it is in their "SLA"
But think again, for a free host... "SLA"!?
only a paid host will do that, coz when there is down time, the paid host give rebate to the client.
so for free host, having such "SLA" is nonsense, as they are not paying the users if there is any downtime.

perhaps Sain said is not really clear enough, but what he mean, is telling free host do not give any guaranty with "SLA" which does not applied to them...
 
Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
sander k said:
Why do you guys want to have so many rules?
This forum is pretty much dead without those rules at the moment.
There are only about 10-15 active users.
Click to expand...
These were never rules, more suggestions to those wanting to start a free hosting service.
 
Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
Bumping to stay on top for new hosts, especially those who cannot be bothered to read the forum rules.
 
Sain Cai

Sain Cai

Beautiful Daddy
NLC
mdoolittle said:
no one wants to come here because of crap like this
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Like what, suggestions? I tend to think it's because of wiseasses like yourself that dissuade people from wanting to become part of a community.

These are NOT rules, not sure why anyone thinks that. They are SUGGESTIONS for new hosts that ignore them anyway, then screw their clients with the sudden shutdowns. You want to look professional, then take the advice of a person who has been around for 10 yrs. Don't want to, fine, I really could care less as it's only that person that will look like a ---- when they shut down.

Of course if you bothered to look at the post below the one you decided to quote and then make the wiseass comment, you would have realized that your post is just ridiculous.
 
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jcarney1987

New Member
I agree. People who offer unlimited plans truely hurt new competition. How is somebody going to pick up a small reseller or a vps and offer those overrated plans. There are only a few successful host I know who can do this and those host even fork out the money for servers just to move their abusers.

Good post though
 
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