Free Website Hosting

[rinAM]

I'm not a hosting company but I'd like to offer free hosting to anyone interested. However, I'm afraid I won't have the time to offer technical support except maybe the basic setup.

In exchange, I would require my Google Adsense ads on your websites but I can be flexible on this in terms of the colours, type of ads and placing.

The hosting must be used for a website and not for file storage. Preferably, the websites have contents ready to upload. You can have your own domain names or I can offer sub-domains if you have the appropriate contents.

Own domain names:
Maximum 200MB Disk Space (negotiable if you have a lot of contents)
CPanel
10GB Monthly Transfer
MySQL Databases
POP3/WebMail Accounts

Sub-domain:
100-200MB Disk Space
FTP Account
E-mail Forwarding

Available sub-domains:
AnimalFact.com - animal-related content
AcneFile.com - acne-related content
FactofTheDay.com - trivia-related content
AtriaMall.com - shopping-related content
 
A few rescrictions:
The hosting must be used for a website and can't be used for file storage
Websites written in English
No illegal contents
No illegal uploading/dowloading MP3
No pornography or sexual contents

Please send me a description of your website(s) for approval.

[Menard]

What file types do you allow/disallow and what is the maximum file upload (per file)?

Do you have a link to an actual website?

[rinAM]

Hi Menard,

I'm not a hosting company so I don't have a link to a site with the hosting offer. I could put the offer on one of
my sites but it will give the impression that I have a hosting company which I don't.

As for the disallowed file types, I will go with what the general standard free hosting offer, which include MP3, EXE. What sort of files do you have in mind?

As for the maximum file upload per file, do you mean file transfer or space? Do you have a very large file to upload? Some other the restrictions I have are that, I can't accept websites used for IRC, MIRC, gaming or anything that require high CPU process.

Maybe if you could tell me a little bit of your projects then I could consider it further. You can post it here or PM me.

Thank you.

[Menard]

I don't have a specific project in mind. The last project I had took me a little while to find a free host; okay, about an hour, but that's a long time for me when it comes to finding free hosting.

The main problem was that I needed to host zip files with my site to offer ebook and software downloads related to the theme of the site. Altnough there are quite a few free providers who state up front or in their FAQs about what file size restrictions they have and what file types are allowed, there are just as many who don't and you either have to dig through their forums or take a shot in the dark by signing up and seeing if you can upload the files.

When I look at a free hosting offer, my interest, beyond the space and bandwidth (10GB is good) is what types of files are disallowed (if zip files are disallowed, I have no interest) and what the maximum file size is (5MB is great, 2-3 MB is good, less than 1MB ham sandwiches ).

Of course, whenever you offer free hosting with PHP support, you are also going to get questions about whether or not you support perl, asp, and ssi. Denis will also inquire about SSH.

Of course (no, this is not a repeat of the previous sentence) one of the biggest questions in the back of a webmaster's mind after having dealt with free hosting is: who are you? Free hosting is a generous offer which benefits both the webmaster and the host (sub-domain hosting often, not always, benefits the host more, but can have an equal benefit to the webmaster*). I have seen a number of free hosting offers from private vendors on other forums, and I have seen just as many of those go away in a matter of a few months; some even in weeks.

A few questions webmasters might well have is:

What is the configuration of your server/servers?

What is your backup?

Are the servers in a datacenter, and, if not, who is watching them? (I would actually not volunteer the answer to this question unless someone specifically asked)


*Okay; really going off topic here. I recently was in a discussion...er...okay...argument with another webmaster (I suppose he was anyway) about Alexa rankings. He was trying to make a point about long, boring recaps of movies (8000 words was considered short). He used a huge site, which had financial backing, with an Alexa ranking in the 40,000 range to suggest that the reason it was highly ranked was because the long recaps were popular with people; he was comparing it to two sites with less content and which were personal, not commercial, sites. I explained such things as content, keyword density, and backing (in my best efforts as I am not in the same category as Andy and Denis) as some of the reasons why that site ranks higher than the other two sites he used as examples; I was kindly called "insanely stupid" for my efforts.

But, is there a point in this?

Atspace is a hosting provider. If you do a search on Alexa, you will see that they have a ranking 3,027. They consist of a hosting site and a forum, but, being a free hosting provider, they are littered with sub-domains using their service and providing all kinds of content and traffic for their domain. My own sub-domain with them is ranked 3,027 with Alexa which doesn't mean a dang thing as that is ranking it off of the host domain. The thing is, though, both the provider and the webmaster benefit; especially if the provider is running adsense. Hmmm...I ought to start offering free sub-domains off of my own domains.


Good luck with your endeavor.

[rinAM]

Hi Menard,

I understand your frustration . The reason why most free hosting are not accepting zip files is I guess when it is only used for downloads that means there are less content and when that happens Adsense doesn't make a lot of sense . That goes the same for file storage.

As for my server, I have been using it for a few years and thought it's time to do something about the extra space I have and hopefully make some money to cover the cost . The specs:
Operating system Linux
Kernel version 2.4.26-1um
Apache version 1.3.36 (Unix)
PERL version 5.8.3
PHP version 4.4.2
MySQL version 4.0.27-standard
cPanel Build 10.9.0-RELEASE 118