Starting Free Hosting...Looking for suggestions

[Calinax]

Hello,

The topic says it all...lol

I'm starting a free web hosting company, in about 1 month. I'm looking for suggestions, mainly what you'd like as free hosting user. It'll be probably a "exclusive club" not open to everyone, but it'll be stable one. Though, I am not sure.

Post your suggestions, any type of them - servers, softwares or anything which comes to your mind.

Thanks:beer:

 

[Decker]

DON'T DO IT!





No really though

Make sure first you can afford it by whatever means you choose to fund it, think 3 months min in advance of that, so if it does go south you can let users down gently and keep a good rep for trying.

Do you need a server or a flexible reseller - or the inbetween a VPS, what will you need to be able to do directly with the thing?

Sign up for a decent respected ad program to get some pennies in - it may only be pennies to start but it all ads up, use this as a slush fund (don't rely on it keep it as either an emergency fund or staff christmas party money

Do a nice fully working site - no broken or hard to maintain bits, and fast loading is better than one that tells your fortune for you each day.

Don't make the fatal mistake of trying to offer more space, transfer & bits than the competition (offer less to start with in fact )

See what else I can think of

 

[Calinax]

I'll be going with a VPS.

For Ads, is google good enough? or there are other high paying programs as well?

I've prepared a 5 page design for this today, not that good but I may buy a completed design if its worth it.

I'm considering this plan:
500 MB Storage
2.5 GB Transfer
2 of each resource. NO advanced stats(or pay for it )
and few paid upgrades.

and about 10-20% of overselling which I think is needed in case of free web hosting.

 

[Decker]

Seems okay, up the 2 to 10 just for effect, mail being the most used (db's they can actually get by with one but seems to be a trend of 'lazy')

And good luck

For ads - depends where you are, UK/USA etc.

 

[roosevelt]

Don't rely on Google ads for your business. Make sure you already have a steady income which will cover your web hosting and then start. Otherwise you might start a business, not make money and then close it down.

To make extra few bucks Google, Yahoo and Clicksor are good. And also others like casale, and valueclick

 

[JustinNoel]

people does not like forced ads and popups.

 

[Clayton]

Don't get into this if you are looking to make money

 

[Calinax]

Actually, I'm not looking out to make up money...lol Just to make enough that pays for its costs itself.

People don't like forced ads, thats true, but they must pay us a one time fee to remove them....one time fee of $20?

Also, I can have a whmcs license. Is this possible to have it verkfy email addresses of customers. For ads, I'm considering iAds.

I wont be keeping any pop-up though as that annoys me as well and I understand the frustration of browsing a website and a pop-up opens before the website....

Anymore suggestions? I though of more