by Hegemon B

Introduction Thousands of people discover the money making opportunity of adult webmastering. They go find some free content (or steal some pics), they build a gallery or a free site, and upload it to a free host. Usually, it stays there. The continuation is different from person to person- it depends on interest. The newbie webmasters who decides to go SERIOUS with this business are the one's (usually) looking for information. And since you are here, I assume you are a newbie webmaster looking for info. :-) Now, if you already ARE on a paid host, hit the back button and don't waste your time here. However, if you still mess with free hosts, please read on. Redirection and Scam artists Adult free hosting is really dirty (in a lot of ways :). If you haven't figured this out yet, you better do it now: Free hosts haven't been created to please YOU! There is a PURPOSE why they exist! In many other business and branches it's the scam artists who dominate the scene. Adult free hosting ain't no exception. Many free hosts have taken this "purpose" mentioned above to the extreme. Redirection, added pop-up windows, inappropriate ads. The list goes on. As a webmaster, what can you do about it? Not much. You haven't paid anything, and you usually don't have any rights complaining either. Please, don't get me wrong here. Not all free hosts are like this. There are a few reliable free hosts out there who won't fuck you around. These can, however, be hard to find. And a free host that leaves your pages as they are doesn't necessary have to be a GOOD host. There are still a lot of other issues with free hosts than just pure dishonesty. Ads One of the most important issues is, of course, ad space. In theory the "free" hosts aren't "free" hosts. The difference between "free" hosts and paid hosts is merely the pay method- paid hosts will send you a bill, and you pay it. Free hosts receives their salary from ads. (Or redirection and other scams, as you read above.) A regular free host takes two (2) banner spots, the two best. Top and bottom. How much advertising space does that leave you? Not much. In fact, most of the link lists and TGPs will only let you have one (1) more ad per page! This is quite a high price to pay. Look at this little calculation: You have 3 possible ad spots on each and every page. FREE host: 2/3 spots taken. Potential loss: 67% PAID host: 0/3 spots taken. Potential loss: 0%. This may seem very easy to understand. And perhaps it is. But it is also easy to absorbe this obvious fact. You are most likely thinking "hell yes, I know, but I'm not spending a dollar and I'm still getting 33% of the traffic to my sponsors!". If you are a guy/gal who are 20 years old and just looking for a couple of extra bucks to spend on beer, so be it. But look at the pictures below (click to see larger image): Typical Free Host Typical Paid Host The free hosts are simply not good enough for serious webmastering. You can't afford to lose 67% in the long run. The discussion right under "Ads" headline concerned ad spots. It's important that you understand the difference between ad spots and actual links. The free host image above has a total of 12 links.... and that is BEFORE you even ADD YOUR STUFF! You might lose 67% in ad spots, but you are losing hell of a lot more in simple links leading OUT from your page! Troubles getting listed When you look at link lists and TGPs rules there's almost ALWAYS at least one note about free hosts. It can be "sites on free hosts are accepted, however, only 1 more ad per page is allowed" or something like "Sites on free hosts are accepted, but our advice to you is to spend a hundred bucks on a domain and paid hosting. You're losing money!". Either one still works for free hosted pages, it is still possible to get listed. But it's easy to read between the lines. These webmasters don't appreciate free hosts either. Neither "sites on free hosts must be extraordinary to get listed" nor a simple "No free hosts" works at all. And if your free host is on a list of blacklisted domains, the letter of acceptance will stay in your dreams. That's not all- quite a few link lists and TGPs only list clean galleries. To keep it high quality. Your chance of being chosen as a "clean gallery" is really limited on a free host; it requires your content and site design to be something extraordinary. You can't do serious webmastering on a free host! Remember It is not a coincidence that everywhere you go, every sincere newbie board/resource you visit, you'll get the same response: Get a paid host and a domain name! If you have ANY kind of interest, ANY kind of ambition, ANY kind of hope to succeed in adult business there is no more than one choice. All newbies have been in this situation. And it is a really hard decision to make. I've heard a lot of arguments like "I don't have that kind of money right now." , "I don't really KNOW if I'm serious about this." and "I'm doing fine with free hosts! Stop bugging me." When you have those argumentations with yourself, nobody can help you except one person. This person is the one who will be paying the bills. This person decides whether to be serious about this or not. It is this persons sweat that will be sippering out from his/her skin those many hours in front of the monitor. But perhaps more important: it's this person who will get the revenue, the profit, the checks. This person will get the friends, the networking, the feeling of have accomplished something. And this person is YOU! Getting started So. You decided to do it the right way. :-) Next thing is to find a good, reliable host. This can be very hard, especially when you don't know what you're looking for. Here are some of the most important pointers to look for in a host: Experience and professionalism Important thing to look for. How are you being treated. As a wallet or as a customer? Professional hosts offer reliable and precise support. Both e-mail and phone. They answer questions in a good way. It's hard to give guidelines about this, try to feel attitude. And be aware of people just looking for referrals, try to build your OWN perspective. Adult websites allowed? This question is very, very important. You can save yourself alot of grief by making sure your webhost says right on their page that they except adult websites. Otherwise, two things might happen. Some people simply won't list you. And even though the webhost will accept the account, they will take your website down without notice if they get any compliants about them hosting porn. Image your site going DOWN. The time it takes to find another, notifying the registar, getting the DNS changed, will cost you big time. The last thing you want is that sort of thing. Bandwidth Also very important, this is how much you'll pay for your traffic. DO NOT go with a webhost that gives you unlimited bandwidth. There are two things to consider. The first is bandwidth transferred and the other is throughput, how fast they serve your pages. It does you no good to have unlimited bandwidth if they are going to choke you down a limit transfer of 1 meg/ sec or something like that. 3-4 USdollars per gig is the norm. But balance that with the features you get. Bandwidth overages will kill you. Look for 3-5 USdollar overage charges for extra bandwidth. Features and Tech A good thing to think of is that you may want CGI, PHP, access to statistics and so on. You might not need it now, but without those you WILL feel handicapped in the future, when you need to do more advanced things. But most important: Do-Not-Stress. Take your time looking for a good host. It's worth it. Good luck! And I'll see you around on VNWR!! Hegemon B VNWR pride!

Written and contributed
by Hegemon B

Back to VNWR