I personally don't think so and I am making money with it. So I thought I would share my thoughts and experiences with you guys; http://www.cimples.com/2007/12/23/a-turbulent-year-the-free-hosting-market-is-dead-yeah-right/
well, i think its dead anyway... with all the crappy service that they provide !! maybe they`re useful for some newbie, who doesn`t have much traffic & all that comes with it....
But, as I wrote already, there is money to be made there. And quite easily. Contrary to what people say.
There is a niche for free web hosting, but as bobchrist points out correctly, it is very difficult to run it smoothly. Reason being, free web hosting attracts phishers, scammers and spammers which in turn cause the free web host problems with their upstream. A good free web hosting company needs the experience to track down and eliminate these problems. These may involved specialized scripts to track the sign ups and monitoring systems. Most free web hosting companies failed after a short duration due to these factors. But I have seen quite a few long time free web hosting company going strong. There is still a market but plan carefully and execute cautiously.
I have never been involved in this industry. Would there be a benefit in being very selective and banning entire countries in the interests of trying to reduce fraud (and hopefully having an easier time with affiliates)? Or would doing this undermine the model? Great article by the way.
Nice article, Kwaku. Do you have a free host? If so what is it? The guy you mentioned...Isn't he "Daniel" from the UK?
I guess most of the users are from poor countries. When you live in rich countries you don't mind paying $5 a month And real scammers and spammers use techniques to identify as nationals (ie: proxies, zombies, etc...)
There are always bad usages to be found for any service (not only free ones btw), And free hosting isn't easy but... Using marketing techniques and giving a good amount of devotion to it will bring you to high revs and values. Sites like 110mb.com and similar are making nice incomes from free hosting and are providing an amazing level of stability and service.
You have to be very cautious about free hosting. So many free hosters start off as 12 year olds with a server in their bedroom, seriously. I think if you can set yourself apart, be UNIQUE and you can make a killing, just like any other niche.
Well said. Also - if you don't have the stamina and ability to suck it in during the first 3-5 months you will probably end up closing it. You need to get a good machine you can grow with and keep advertising and spreading the word until you hit gold.
I think it is dead ! I would rather pay then have it for free, you get more insurance really that the host is of any worth!
free hosting is tough, how tough? this month i would have just broke even (no wages). now with the help of the above poster i have 2 pending sales at the value of $200 and i still have another 2 weeks left before i have been with them a month. with google using a bigger adzone in the same place, i was getting less then $100 month in fact that was the most i ever got in a single month. last month it was only $66 or something because i was hit very bad by the change in ad types. im not dancing yet though, i still need to actually get payed my $200.
well this market is saturated as of now but it does have a lot of scopes for future. daily there are thousands of new sites made and not all of those webmasters can afford paid hostings. it still has money i guess
How can a market offering free hosting get saturated when millions of new sites pop up every day? Market can NEVER get saturated and if your service is good and niche aimed you'll make a fortune on the long run.
Hi, I am new here, so dont know much. But to put forward my thoughts how are 110mb.com and x10hosting doing? Are they equally bad?
Most of them runs ads/sponsored links etc and have upgrade features, once they get good client base, they will ask you to upgrade service to paid.
No respectable webmaster would use free hosting, because there is no guarantee that you will provide service, or even keep your hosting online. When you use a paid service you use the money as leverage for good service. I think a lot of younger kids will use it, similar to how I used freewebs.com when I was little. For that reason, you could make money off in-line ads, but not from any upgrades.