GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR WITH FREE HOSTS by Clark Vincent

You see them advertising everywhere, and their numbers proliferate on

the web with each passing day. They are called free adult hosts, and led

by the biggest of them all, FSN, they are spreading like vermin across

the cyberspace galaxy.

This is the story of how free hosts work, why they suck, and why

professional adult webmasters should not be led into the trap of

believing the promises they make.

We spoke with scores of adult webmasters who tried the free host game,

and their stories were similar: You get what you pay for.

The biggest scam of all are the terms of a "free" hosting account.

Basically how free hosts work is they offer you "free" hosting space on

their servers to place your content, with the caveat that you must put

up with their banners running in the two prime positions on the

webpages, top and bottom.

As most experienced webmasters know, these are the prime positions for

advertising in the adult market. Surfers will most likely click most

often on these banners when surfing the site.

Free hosts promise unlimited bandwidth, but what they don't tell you is

that your bandwidth is "hard limited," meaning the amount of transfer

allotted to each account is allocated to a given amount of bandwidth

transfer, usually no more than 1-2 gig per month, sometimes less.

An administrator or tech will often monitor this bandwidth and compare

it to the signup ratio they are making on your marketing efforts, and if

the numbers add up, you get more bandwidth. If they don't, your "pipe"

or flow of bandwidth will be turned down like a faucet.

"If your sign ups are not correlating with your sales, once you approach

this allocated amount, watch as your "free site" slows down to a crawl,

and all your hard work promoting someone elses advertising gets lost in

a mire of slow loading and no-loading pages," says Doug Moore, of

QuikSex, a major adult search engine. "It's a fucking mess."

"I tried the Free host game, and I guess they are okay for beginners,

but as far as making any money with them, they are a collossal waste of

time," says James Moody, an experienced adult webmaster with over 5

years in the adult game.

"I was advertising a free hosts banners for three months, and received

about $150 dollars total. For three months! Prior to that, with my own

hosted site, I was making that much per week, and sometimes more. Nobody

will convince me they weren't being honest about my payouts."

"What a free host does is convinces you that you are getting something

of value for free, but all you are getting is a job promoting their

advertising, for which you will often not get paid. I know there is

skimming going on, Moody says. "It's one of the biggest scams on the

internet."

To a webmaster paying for professional hosting services, this seems

appealing, but beware you get what you pay for with hosting. Use your

business sense. Nobody is going to give you unlimited bandwidth unless

they are making a profit on your efforts.

"Free hosts offer little or no technical or marketing support, their

servers are overloaded and slow, and they are ripping you off. Period,

the end," says William Nicholson, of Sage Networks, a large web

consulting company based in Boston, MA.

"This can hurt the webmaster trying to build a name or reputation for a

quality site," Nicholson says. Once a surfer gets burned on a slow site,

or is ripped off by a free host's advertisers, it hurts the webmaster,

not the free host."

"Free hosts appear to be popular with beginning webmasters, guys that

are in it for the short haul, says Rich Russo, an internet marketing

consultant. "They think they are going to make easy money on a quick

free fix. What they don't understand is that they are working for

someone else for minimum wage."

For the adult webmaster thinking of trying a free host, beware. Don't

put all your eggs in one basket. And remember that if it sounds too good

to be true, it probably is.

- Submited to AWN