Free No Ads Web Host

From LoveToKnow Web-Design

Many things on the web are free, but the idea of a free no ads web host might seem about as realistic as a unicorn. However, the web is vast, and if you look hard enough, you can find that particular unicorn just a few clicks away.

What Good is a Free No Ads Web Host?

Having a no ads website is something for the purists – ads on the web are ubiquitous, and as fast as advertisers find new and better ways to market their wares, viewers find new and better ways to ignore them. Most people have accepted the many ads and links as a worthwhile price to pay for the information available on the web for free, as long as the information is useful.

However, you don't have to have ads on your website – although you usually have to pay for that privilege, purchasing domain hosting for your own site that you control. However, a few companies on the web provide absolutely free no ads web host services using a couple of innovative strategies.

Strategy 1: Space, But Not Much

Hosting companies are in the business of space – that is, space on their webservers, as well as the framework to "serve" their clients' websites out to the web. Space is very cheap, and most of the time the Apache or Microsoft server software is operating far below capacity.

This leaves them with the ability to offer free web space, with the server software included, to new clients. A typical package, such as the one offered at 50 Webs includes:

60 mb of disk space
Unlimited Domain Names (hosted, not provided – you still have to acquire your own domain name)
1 POP3 Email Account
1 FTP Account
File Manager (via Stable Linux with Apache)

Of course, while they offer the services, they keep them rather small – it's kind of amusing to think of "unlimited domain names" when there's only 60 mb of space available. In the high-bandwidth world, a single video file is usually more than 60 mb.

That's what 50 Webs is counting on – that you'll like their service but begin to chafe under the limitations of size, of one email account, and decide to purchase one of their larger plans. The good news is that the larger plans still don't cost very much, and they are going to probably try their best to provide you with good customer service regardless of your plan, simply to keep you "in the family."

Strategy 2: No Cost, Just Labor

Another strategy is used by companies like Astahost. The free web package provided by this company is much more robust than 50 Webs:

500MB Server Space / 10000MB Bandwidth
MS Frontpage Plugins
PHP, CGI, Perl, Unlimited MySQL databases
ImageMagick Support for photo galleries
Unlimited Email and Unlimited FTP Accounts
24/7 Tech Support
Web Based E-Mail Programs
99.9% Uptime Guarantee

That's quite a good server package, though again, the question remains What are they guaranteeing? You can't exactly ask for your money back. While Astahost does partner with other hosting companies to offer other services and packages, the package is available for free with only one catch: you have to work.

Specifically, you have to contribute posts to their forums and knowledge base, with every post earning credits called "CENTS" that you can later redeem for the the free no ads web host package. The site is a little unclear about how your posts are evaluated in terms of CENTS, which might be frustrating – however, since people tend to post information on the web for free often, this is an added bonus to what you might already be doing. In addition, the connections and conversations you have online with other people can prove very valuable when you become the person looking for answers to problems from your peers.

It turns out that fee web hosting with no advertising is not so mythical after all, so there's no reason not to launch your own home on the web right away..

Retrieved from "http://web-design.lovetoknow.com/Free_No_Ads_Web_Host"