20 Responses

1. Daniel

   08|Oct|2007 1
   

   It is nice to see that at least one free host has stayed true to its original mission for so long.

2. ragna4u

   08|Oct|2007 2
   

   T35 Hosting has continued to offer free hosts while others all died.
   Good job

3. Alex Melen

   08|Oct|2007 3
   

   Thanks! That might be a little dramatic.. some are still around.. it’s just very shocking to see what has happened to the free hosting industry! I didn’t even realize how bad it was until I did the research for this article.

4. 100mb web hosting

   10|Oct|2007 4
   

   what happened to tripod?

5. Alex Melen

   10|Oct|2007 5
   

   Good point.. there are a couple that I missed when I thought back about it. If I have some time I might add the other ones in. Tripod is going to be hard to track down because it changed ownership several times.. I’ll do my best though

6. Cathy Goodwin

   10|Oct|2007 6
   

   I suspect free hosting has disappeared because marketers are becoming more sophisticated. Free hosting seemed to come with a catch. For example, you have to display advertising. Godaddy offers free hosting to existing customers (I’m not sure how you qualify) but no sane commercial website would choose that option: you have to accept advertising.

   Paid hosting has become quite cheap (hostgator and godaddy, for instance). Some services offer “free” hosting if you sign up for their web design packages, but that’s rarely a good value.

7. Alex Melen

   12|Oct|2007 7
   

   Good point Cathy. So you think people just became less willing to put up with the ads in order to get the free hosting. While it seems at the same time paid hosting prices have gone down. Very interesting… hmm

8. The Web Hosting Blog | Karol Krizka

   12|Oct|2007 8
   

   […] reading about them, and I found Alex’s angle on them quite original. In one of the articles he compared the free plans of hosts from he 1990’s (15MB of free space, no dynamic pages, no databases, you know the type) to their current plans. Not […]

9. Daniel White

   16|Oct|2007 9
   

   I have worked for T35 for nearly 2 years now, and I have been through it’s ups and downs, but I still remain convinced that T35 Hosting Solutions is simply a legend of it’s own class. With unlimited space/bandwidth, T35’s free hosting is second to none in world class hosting, with over 100,000 [correct my mathematics if I am wrong Alex] active free hosting accounts.

   The next step up is T35’s paid hosting, which is far superior to most hosting companies in terms of affordability, uptime, and overall power. Hosted at one of the countries largest and most well known datacenters, the T35 paid hosting servers are ran by extremely powerful servers, with a large network pipe to support it all.

   Not only do I work for T35, but I rely on T35 for my companies website.

   Thank you Alex, for providing the best of the best in this crazy world of competition.

10. Alex Melen

    16|Oct|2007 10
    

    Thanks Daniel!

11. leo

    19|Oct|2007 11
    

    I remembre that days. I used freewebs.com as my first hosting. All was easy and i wanted to install things like forums and cms. I was like a dream because i never thought i could do that. Now, im here. I still use a free host, but more advanced, with cpanel, ftp and all that things. I will never forget my first html code in freewebs.

12. Alex Melen

    19|Oct|2007 12
    

    We’re including freewebs in our php hosting shoot-out (coming in the next few days), you might want to check that out! Do you mind sharing what your current host is? I haven’t seen too many stable, long running free hosts offering cpanel!

13. leo

    20|Oct|2007 13
    

    As you know, freewebhosts aren’t very stable and long running. If you want that, you should pay. However, you can find some good free hosts. I found one i like. It’s ahplace.com, if you want to visit it.

14. Alex Melen

    20|Oct|2007 14
    

    Well t35 free web hosting has been around for a decade and has been pretty stable

    i’ll check out ahplace.com though. do they offer php? i can include them in the upcoming php comparison if they do.

15. Web Hosting Reviews, Web Site Hosting

    21|Oct|2007 15
    

    Web Hosting Reviews, Web Site Hosting

    I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

16. Ryan

    22|Oct|2007 16
    

    Just to correct the article, Fortunecity DOES still offer free hosting, and it’s 100 mb of webspace with 3 gb monthly data transfer.

17. Alex Melen

    22|Oct|2007 17
    

    Yup, thanks for the correction! Someone else also made that correction in the forum. In the screen shot I took they didn’t have it on the front page. I’m not sure if they just added it, or I just missed it. Thank you for the correction though!

18. Marc Ledder

    08|Jun|2008 18
    

    i would like some feedback as to what i need to do to my free hosting company to become a well respected free hosting provider…i am not displaying ads/popups on any user websites…im growing at 200 plus per day,,,but i want to become big…
    Tell me what i am missing—what should i do…???

    thanks

19. Marc Ledder

    08|Jun|2008 19
    

    by the way i am talking about www.AokHost.com
    i need your help badly,,,i want to stay open,,,im just not getting enough clients, and need your opinion on what i need to do better…i allready pay people to monitor everything so that customers get fast service.
    any help would be greatly appreciated.

    thanks,
    marc

20. Cathy Goodwin

    09|Jun|2008 20
    

    Marc,

    My suggestion would be to get someone to review your site. Choose a copywriter or marketing consultant (not a designer). I have to disclose that I offer this service, but I’m hardly alone. Just type in “copywriting website review” or even just “copywriting.” Or go to Rent-a-Coder and submit a bit if you want a deeply discounted service.

    Second, you say you’re growing at 200 per day. Does that mean 200 customers a day are signing up for free webhosting? Do you have a realistic perspective on what to expect in this market? Or are you getting 200 visitors to the site but no conversions?

    Just a quick look suggests:
    (1) Replace the welcome message with compelling copy
    (2) De-clutter the home page: make it easier for visitors to decode your message.
    (3) Clarify your benefits in the headline
    (4) Since you’ve got a “too good to be true” benefit you have to explain why you make this offer: how can you offer free hosting without ads/
    (5) Move the adsense ads to the side
    (6) Include testimonials.
    (7) Get a design that communicates credibility and service.

    Good luck!

    Cathy Goodwin