Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts
Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts
The lawsuit filed recently by Viacom against Google alleging copyright infringement for many of the videos available for viewing on YouTube should be of more than academic interest to web hosts. You may believe you’re protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 if one of your customers commits copyright infringement, but that protection is not automatic.The truth is that there are certain steps you need to take to show that you’ve been appropriately diligent and that your intentions are good. Remember MGM’s lawsuit against peer-to-peer file sharing site Grokster? It went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Grokster ended up losing the case. The court found that a distributor of a device capable of copyright infringement CAN be held liable for the resulting infringement if the distributor encouraged that use.
If you don’t want to be seen as encouraging copyright infringement, you need to respond promptly when such issues are brought to your attention. The section of the DMCA that is most relevant to web hosts is 512. Yes, it’s a bit long, and it’s in legalese (but still fairly readable). I’d strongly recommend that any web host read it all the way through and make sure that he or she understands it. Among other things, it talks about the conditions a web host must satisfy to be considered exempt from liability for copyright infringement.
Before I go into what you need to do to protect yourself under the “safe harbor” provisions of the DMCA, I’d like to address some of the misconceptions that may be circulating among your customers (and even your staff!) about copyright. The laws do vary in different countries. I’ll be addressing U.S. law here.
First let me mention what isn’t protected: names, titles, slogans, or ideas. The creative expression of ideas IS protected, however, which is why you see so many different articles covering the same topics both online and offline. And there is no real difference between a work that is published online and one that is published offline, at least in the eyes of copyright law. Never mind that the online work is easier to copy; that doesn’t make it right – or legal.
Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts – Correcting Copyright Myths
If you or anyone on your staff holds any of the mistaken beliefs about copyright that I’m about to discuss, you’ll want to correct them. You may even want to devote an FAQ on your web site to this issue, aimed specifically at your customers. You can also include a section that details how you will respond to receiving a DMCA notice of copyright infringement.
First of all, just because it’s published online does NOT mean that it is “in the public domain.” As I mentioned above, work that is published online is entitled to the same copyright protection as any other work. Work in the public domain can be freely used and copied.
There are certain cases in which limited portions of a work can be copied for “fair use.” Fair use purposes include commentary, criticism, and parody – but under no circumstances does fair use represent a “blank check” to copy whatever you want.
Including the name of an article’s author and/or linking to the site on which the original article appears does NOT somehow make it “okay” for you to copy the material. You still must get permission. If you think enough of an article to want to copy it anyway, you should ask for permission; you might be pleasantly surprised. Many content sites have specific policies in place that allow some limited content reproduction, if you ask nicely.
Changing an article or a design slightly still constitutes copying an original work. Just as you need permission from the copyright holder to copy the original work, you also need permission to use a derivative work. Only the copyright holder can publish derivatives of his or her own work with impunity.
How long does copyright apply to a creative work? Many if not most items published in the U.S. on the Internet will fall under the rules that came into effect after 1978. Those state that an item’s copyright is good for 70 years after the copyright holder’s death. If you’re dealing with a work-for-hire piece, then the copyright doesn’t expire until 95 years after it was published or 120 years after it was created, whichever is shorter.
What makes a work copyrighted? The simple act of creation is enough. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something as simple as a forum post or an email; it is copyrighted by its author from the second it’s created. It doesn’t need to be registered with anyone, and it doesn’t need a copyright notice. The copyright notice used to be necessary at one time, but that ended in 1989. It’s still a good idea to include a copyright notice though.
Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts – Steps a Copyright Holder Should Take
So what should a copyright holder do if they discover that another web site has stolen his or her content? There are three steps that they may need to take. Web hosts should know about these steps because they may find themselves involved in the second one.
First, a copyright holder should contact the webmaster of the web site. You should be able to find contact information on the site itself; the site’s WHOIS entry is another potential source. When you contact the webmaster, explain the problem politely but firmly. Tell them where their content came from, and give them a deadline; if they don’t take it down by a certain time (I’ve seen some advocate giving an infringer two weeks), state that you will take further action. It’s been our experience at Developer Shed that this kind of letter does get action, and the site takes down the offending content. When it doesn’t, it’s time for step two.
The next step is one that you as a web host may have already experienced. Since you have probably stated in your Terms of Service that you do not allow illegal content, and stolen content is not legal, it only makes sense that a copyright holder would appeal to you to take it down if he or she has not received satisfaction from one of your customers. There are six specific elements that must be included in a “notification of claimed infringement” under the DMCA:
- A signature (physical or electronic) of someone authorized to act for the party that has allegedly been infringed.
- Identification of the copyrighted work that has allegedly been infringed.
- Identification of the material that is alleged to be infringing, and information that will let the web host locate the material (after all, a web host can’t take down material if it’s impossible to locate).
- Contact information for the party making the complaint (an address, phone number, and/or email address).
- A statement from the person making the complaint that they have “a good faith belief that use of the material complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”
- A statement that the information in the letter is accurate, “and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”
The third step a copyright holder can take, if the first two don’t achieve the goal, is to take the case to a lawyer. I’m stopping short here, because my focus in this article is more on web hosts rather than copyright holders. So let me tell you the other steps you as a web host need to take under the DMCA.
Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts – Taking Appropriate Precautions
If you want to be covered by DMCA’s “safe harbor” you need to designate an individual who is responsible for receiving infringement notices from copyright holders. That’s written right into the law. The name, address, phone number, and email address of that person must be included on your web site “in a location accessible to the public,” and should also be provided to the Copyright Office, which maintains a directory of these agents. There is a form you can fill out to designate an agent; you’ll also have to pay an $80 fee. Think of it as an investment in your business.
Your next step is to draft and implement a DMCA policy. The DMCA itself states that you need a policy in place to deal with repeat infringers. Under the DMCA, you’ll be expected to analyze and respond to initial notices, counter notices, injunctions and “repeat infringer” notices. There are web hosts that will play it safe and automatically take down material if someone says that it infringes on copyright. That’s not always the best approach; for example, when Viacom demanded that YouTube take down 100,000 videos it claimed infringed its copyrights, a significant fraction of those videos were not infringing. In fact, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Viacom over one of the videos that it ordered taken down.
Full information about the various kinds of DMCA notices, and how to respond to them so that you are protected under the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions, can be found in the DMCA itself. There’s a fair bit of record keeping involved for everyone’s protection, but again, this is an investment in your business. David Snead wrote an article for Web Host Industry Review that lays out what a web host’s DMCA policy might include; although the article dates to mid-2005 it is still valid.
Finally, you need to make it very clear that you’re complying with DMCA policy. Tell copyright holders right on your web site who they need to contact and what steps they need to take to file a DMCA notice with you. Make it easy for them, and you make it easy for yourself.
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Copyright Considerations for Web Hosts
How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic
How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic
There are a number of ways that your web host and the package you choose can affect your user traffic. Many site owners overlook one of the most obvious ways, however. This article tells you what that is, why you shouldn’t overlook it, and your best options for making sure it doesn’t adversely affect your visitors.Picking a Host
You are considering which web host to use for your web site. You consider whether it supports your scripting languages — is it Linux or Windows based? If you do JavaScript, you want to know whether that is supported as well. You consider how much space you need. You also check the email options, the additional scripts, security options, speed, testimonials — you may even (rarely) fiddle with another user’s control panel, before walking up to the sales representative and declaring the specifications you want.
Whoops! Missed a spot, or did I? It seems everybody misses this particular spot; I have listed everything that most people consider.
But as a web designer who does search engine optimization (so that you know where this article is coming from), I discovered that bandwidth is one of the most important design considerations you have to look at before picking a web host. I first ran into bandwidth when I was hanging out with an Internet service provider who metered bandwidth to its clients. This caused sluggish service, severe customer complaints and general heartache all around.
The bandwidth that a web site needs is in download bandwidth. This is how much bandwidth the site has available on a monthly basis for users. If this bandwidth ends before the month runs out, your website is inaccessible to anybody that wants to surf it.
A little design consideration
I have actually never seen a designer (during the design stage) mention bandwidth and how it could affect the performance of the site; all they worry about is the size of the site. When your bandwidth ends, your site users will be unable to access your site’s page at all! This ought to be sufficiently disturbing to any web site owner. The majority of web sites never run into problems with their bandwidth, but those that do get to do all sorts of interesting things like buy extra bandwidth for their sites.
Most webmasters never consider how important bandwidth is until they start running out of it. Some then paste notices all over their site begging users not to save every page. Consider that it is the same bandwidth that is consumed by the user when viewing pages, that is consumed when the user saves it. Methinks the web master does not want every page on his site to be read for the sake of bandwidth; however I am sure that when the site was being uploaded the web master did not believe that he or she would have to spend extra money every month on bandwidth (and perhaps the money is not there; we will talk briefly about monetizing so that you can at least pay for bandwidth). We will talk about what you have to do as far as anticipating traffic and bandwidth. We will also discuss the best kind of hosting that will, over time, afford you protection against an upward surge in traffic.
How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic – Your Side of the Bandwidth Dance
Anticipate and plan in advance
With the sites for which I am optimizing, I always ask myself the question “how much traffic do I want daily?” This is for the sake of having clearly defined goals which I will then be using as a guide to my optimization strategy. Looking at the amount of traffic that my optimization strategy should generate for me, I can easily estimate how much bandwidth I need every month by multiplying my expected daily traffic by my average file size and average number of page views.
For example, if I estimate 800 hits a day, and my average file size is 5 kilobytes, and I get a minimum of two page views per user (you can mix the data usage up; use averages, minimums and maximums, whatever makes your day) that’s 8000 kb. That is an anticipated bandwidth usage of 8 megabytes a day; double it to make life interesting and multiply it by 30 – you now have close to 500 MB a month. Now this is still within reasonable limits, but when your optimization strategy kicks in, you may have some particular days when you have 5000 hits a day, and some days you will get people that view maybe ten or twenty pages in one sitting. Your one gigabyte of standard bandwidth is looking paltry – actually it’s insufficient. Fortunately buying overages does not cost too much, but overages could come too late; you may actually have lost a few days if the traffic comes in really fast.
Now I know the above projections seem optimistic to some, but it happens, sometimes through no fault of the webmaster. Some external circumstance may make your site the destination of the moment (a review of your web site by Forbes, Time, or Newsweek, or your site being in the news for some other reason). It may not happen immediately, but if you do have a plan for increasing traffic, and you follow it, it is inevitable that your traffic will definitely go up.
The key strategy from the above would be to start off with a standard web hosting package and as you optimize, you keep an eye on your server logs to check your users’ behavior. If you have users who save every page they are interested in, or only seem to read a particular section of your side and ignore the other pages, or who seem to have a hankering to download a particular ebook or software, then you should be prepared to increase bandwidth at a moment’s notice.
How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic – A Bit on Monetizing
This section is for scientists and individuals who offer free ebooks or free content, and who discover that they are seemingly always short of bandwidth before the end of the month. Then they have to hand out extra money for extra bandwidth from their hosts (and they do not make a dime in return).
Adsense
This is Google’s revolutionary (and profitable) means of inconspicuously advertising. You can find it under business solutions for publishers on the web site www.google.com. You sign up and insert the code as directed. If you have traffic coming to your site, you should be making enough to buy bandwidth (and milk and cookies) and even be able to pay for hosting.
Monetizing Link Resources
By doing this you simply ensure that all your links are monetized, so every click gives you the opportunity to make some money if an action is performed. A good site to get resources for almost anything is http://www.clickbank.com/. But enough on money! Let’s get back to hosting packages and bandwidth.
The Web hosts
No matter how excellent your website is in terms of design and programming, when it comes to hosting, your host has to have the necessary software to make all your programming work. Apart from that there are a plethora of factors such as security and space. But when it comes to traffic, only one factor is important, and that is bandwidth. Getting to your site may be similar to getting home during Lagos rush hour — if you do not have enough bandwidth, it’s very uncomfortable.
Bandwidth offered by a web host depends on the following factors.
- Number of customers.
- Amount of traffic those customers constitute.
- The web host’s own Internet connections (who their service provider is).
How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic – Your Options
Shared
Every web host meters space and meters bandwidth. You will require more bandwidth than your calculations of your minimum needed bandwidth indicate. One thing that will go a long way in ensuring that you do not have problems (major problems) is that you do not take shared web hosting.
Shared web hosting puts your web site on the same server as others. It is the lowest priced option for web hosting at an entry level, however control over your site is limited and you may not have an extensive range of scripts and options.
Why not?
Shared web hosting is okay for a small site, which does not have high bandwidth and security demands. Remember, everything is shared, including bandwidth! The negative side of shared bandwidth is that if ten websites reside on a server, and share bandwidth, then bandwidth is served on a first come first served basis. Imagine being on the same shared server as YouTube! The word is “shutout.” They get all the traffic, they get all the bandwidth.
The only way shared bandwidth can ever work in your favor is when you are the biggest drawer of traffic on your server, which you cannot guarantee forever. It is good if you are on a basic budget. But for serious traffic, you can be sure you will have problems.
Virtual hosting is almost as bad (almost, it has more benefits such as scripting and security options). You have metered bandwidth, and you still get to share servers.
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting gives you private root access, your own unshared bandwidth, secure access, and one server for you and no one else. This is the best kind of hosting if you are a fairly large site and you expect a large amount traffic. And there are several features that you can also take advantage of so that no matter what happens, you never run out of bandwidth (hopefully you never run out of money for overages either).
One such feature that I have seen offered by some web hosts is like a phone billing system, where you actually just pay for space allocated, and then you pay a separate fee for the bandwidth you use (and only the bandwidth you use).
Another system allows the web host to bill you for excess bandwidth used, after it has being used; this is different from the normal procedure which is for your host to send you an email when you are running out of bandwidth and for you to buy extra bandwidth before you run out.
Different hosts do have different packages, so you will have to look around for a package that fits your budget and your needs. If you are willing to spend time searching (and negotiating) you will discover that web hosts can actually exceed their stated limits and offer you very small increments in price.
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How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic
Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts
Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts
It’s not unusual for the smaller players in an industry to look at what the bigger players are doing for inspiration. By mimicking the larger companies, they hope to drum up more interest, more customers, and more profits. The web hosting industry is no different. But the problem is that some things just don’t scale down well.Let’s take loss leaders as an example. You’ve probably encountered them in other fields. To take an example from Florida’s busy real estate market, when I moved into an apartment down here, the firm I chose to rent from gave me a discount on my first year’s rent, spread out over all 12 months. When that first year ended, and the rent went up, it was a modest enough increase (and I was happy enough with the service I’d received during the year) that I chose to stay. The hassle it would have been to move was also a consideration, true, but the point is that the company renting me the apartment had done so at a loss to itself in the hope that I would stay on at the full price.
There are a couple of ways loss leaders can work in the web hosting industry. One of them is to sell a service below your own cost in the hope that someone who purchases that service will also purchase your full price products. In some cases, a company may offer something for a very low price or even free, provided the customer buys something else at the full price (for example, a cheap domain name if the customer agrees to buy web hosting from the company).
A web hosting company might hedge its loss leader with limits to avoid losing too much money. In the case of domain names, it might offer the deal to only a certain number of customers, or “for a limited time,” or allow customers to buy only a certain number of domain names. In general, domain names are not the riskiest loss leader for a web hosting company; anyone who purchases a domain name will presumably have a web site in mind, and need web hosting for that site. For many customers, it would make sense to buy a domain name and web hosting from the same company, just for the sake of convenience.
But there are certain things that larger web hosting companies offer as loss leaders which could put a smaller company out of business. The temptation is understandable, given what most companies hope this kind of high stakes gamble will accomplish for them. Let’s take a hard look at this kind of loss leader.
Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts – Web Hosting as Loss Leader
Some web hosting companies use web hosting itself as a loss leader. They will offer inexpensive web hosting in the hope that the customer will appreciate their service enough to sign up for another year at the full price. Or they will offer an inexpensive web hosting account and try at a later time to move the customer into one of their more feature-rich (and expensive) packages.
To give you some examples, DreamHost has offered coupons for deep discounts on hosting service, far more than 50 percent in many cases. For example, when the user enters one code for a particular monthly plan that ordinarily costs $59.90, he or she will pay only $9.90. The same code entered for a yearly plan that ordinarily costs $119.40 will let the user receive the plan for only $22.40. Recalling what I said about large hosting companies, DreamHost recently doubled the number of domain names they hosted in the past year, to 400,000. So using a loss leader may be working for them.
Another company that has used loss leaders effectively is 1&1 Internet. Back in 2004, when the company launched its U.S. division, it started selling domains at a loss, for $5.99 each. It also began offering a $29 a month hosting plan to customers for free for three years – in short, it was giving away a $1,000 value to those who were willing to try its service. Many customers who tried out the plan were so happy with the service that they purchased other services from 1&1 Internet. The web hosting company hopes that those trying the plan will be willing to pay to stay beyond the original three years. Needless to say, 1&1 Internet is also a large company; at the time it started the promotion, it was Europe’s largest web host.
It makes sense for a larger company to run a loss leader campaign, but it may not make sense for a smaller company. Large companies don’t undertake such a campaign unless they have the cash flow to support it and can absorb the loss. They also have specific goals in mind when running a loss leader campaign, and while smaller companies may have similar goals, loss leaders may not be an appropriate way for a smaller web hosting company to achieve those goals.
Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts – Why Web Hosting Companies Use Loss Leaders
Why would a web hosting company, or indeed any company, use a loss leader campaign? There are a number of reasons. Mainly, loss leader campaigns are used when the company is trying to achieve something that it can’t do simply from selling its product at the usual price. Loss leaders capture customer attention; what a company hopes to do with that attention varies.
Perhaps the most obvious thing to do with that attention is attract more customers. “Hosting companies use loss leaders to grow the customer base exponentially, with the ultimate goal being to up-sell these customers to more profitable business,” notes Barbara Branaman, vice president and general manager of the hosting unit at XO Communications. That’s a good thing for large companies to do if they can handle the explosive increase in their customer base, but if you’re a small company, your customer service will probably suffer under such an onslaught.
Web hosting companies also use the attention generated by loss leaders to help them break into markets where their brand is not very prominent (or practically non-existent). That’s why 1&1 Internet offered such a dramatic loss leader when it entered the U.S. web hosting market. That kind of promotion was bound to generate buzz and raise the company’s profile.
A third reason web hosting companies might want to use loss leaders to get attention should be familiar to everyone in the field: the cutthroat competition. Everybody is trying to offer the lowest prices to attract customers who aren’t afraid to shop around and switch hosts to find the best possible deal. It’s worth keeping in mind that the customers attracted by loss leaders are just as likely to leave as soon as they find a better deal. Once your prices go up after that first year or promotion period, they’ll switch to the next company that offers them a loss leader. Sure, there is some effort involved in changing web hosts, but it’s not as much effort as, for example, trying to move an entire apartment’s worth of furniture and personal effects (to say nothing of 50+ boxes of books!).
Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts – Why Loss Leaders are Risky
I’ve hinted at some of the reasons why loss leaders are risky for a small web hosting company, particularly the kind of loss leaders that larger web hosts can afford to offer. Let’s take a closer look at some of the problems a small web host may experience when it tries to emulate the big boys in this area.
What will happen if you offer a year of free web hosting as a loss leader and experience the kind of growth in your customer base that you only dream about? Well, that dream can turn into a nightmare pretty quickly. More customers means more customer support calls, and if you don’t have the staff to respond, your disgruntled customers will complain – loudly, and to anyone who will listen, not just your staff. DreamHost may have fallen prey to that very problem, if the web site dreamhost-sucks.com is any indication. In that case, your loss leader will seriously backfire, attracting the kind of attention you don’t want.
Also, as noted above, you may not really want the kind of customers that would be attracted by loss leaders. Branaman has observed that loss leaders “attract the wrong type of audience.” You don’t want to have a “base of customers that are not loyal to the services or interested in additional services, therefore making the overall business unprofitable.”
Looking at the web hosting industry as a whole, loss leaders as a marketing strategy may be doing more harm than good. While they force web hosts to increase their efficiency, they also create expectations of unnaturally low prices in web hosting customers, commoditizing the market. It may not be too harmful to offer domain names as loss leaders, but before you offer free web hosting as a loss leader, take a close look at your business and figure out whether the customers you gain (and the income you lose) will be worth it.
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Loss Leaders Risky Gamble for Small Web Hosts
Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host
Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host
So you’re dreaming of quitting your job and starting up your own web hosting business. You figure that it can’t be too hard, especially with reseller web hosting packages. Just lounge your way to easy street, right? Wrong.Web hosting is a business, like any other, and the vast majority of businesses fail in their first year. It is not a way to fast, easy money. Don’t believe me? Do a little research for yourself. A recent article at Tech News World on choosing a web host pointed out that “many of the biggest [web hosting companies] filed for bankruptcy protection or were saved by being sold to some other company…” So if even the big guys have problems, how can it be easy for a little guy?
You’re probably thinking that little guys can be more agile, and besides, you don’t need to deal with the huge cost of overhead that is part of the burden of a large company. You therefore don’t need to make as much money as, say, GoDaddy. So surely you won’t have the same kinds of issues, right? Well, it’s true that when a problem increases in magnitude to that degree, its nature changes – but just because you’re not paying a salary to thousands of employees and rent on a corporate campus doesn’t mean you don’t need to worry about what you’re paying yourself and one or two employees, to say nothing of the electric bill for your home office.
I don’t expect your dream of entrepreneurship will die an easy death, so I’m going to give you a list of reasons why shouldn’t become a web host, or at least rethink your decision. If you’ve read Matt Inglot’s article on the top five reasons not to become an entrepreneur, you’ll spot some parallels here. But web hosting has some special issues that can’t really be mentioned in a general article about being an entrepreneur, and I’m going to expand on those here.
Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host – No Vacation Time
The Internet is up 24/7. Site owners expect their websites to be up 24/7. And if they aren’t, they’ll call their web hosts to complain; that’s you, and you might find yourself working 24/7 just to keep up with your customers’ needs. But that’s just the most obvious manifestation of the problem with being your own boss. The work never stops.
It isn’t just customers either. If you’re a reseller web host, you’re dealing with the company from whom you’re buying your hosting space. If you aren’t, you’re buying your own equipment and dealing with suppliers, whose workers and products may or may not be reliable. You also have to spend time promoting your business, which involves a lot more than just slapping up a web site.
In fact, the number of skills you need to operate your own company is staggering. You are your own salesman, marketer, bookkeeper, trainer, IT person (particularly important when you’re a web host), website designer, purchaser, quality control person, customer support, and on and on. If you are missing any of these skills, you have to acquire them yourself by taking the time to read books, attend classes, or do whatever it takes. Your other option is to hire someone with these skills, either as a full-time employee or as a contractor.
If not having the right skill set is one reason that many web hosting businesses fail, another reason is time management. Let’s face it, you can’t be available to your customers every single moment; you have to sleep sometime. Don’t assume you won’t get a phone call at three in the morning from one of your customers with an issue. It’s not unusual to put 15 hours a day into your business, and it’s unlikely that you’ll be at the top of your form the entire time. If you’re not naturally well-organized, you can look at time management as another skill you must learn before starting your own business, whether it’s web hosting or another field.
Of course, this feeds right back into the point that there’s so much to do when you’re running your own business. You want to refine your business plan and grow your business, but when you’re caught up in daily activities it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. How can you work on maximizing your growth when five customers are screaming at you because they can’t get to their sites to update them, the new server hasn’t been set up yet, your customer support person is down with the flu, the firm handling your web connection has you on hold, some of your bills are overdue because some of your customers are late with their payments, and your pay-per-click advertising campaign just ran out of money for the month? Sure, that’s overly dramatic, but you probably get my point.
Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host – Where’s the Money?
Any business is going to need some start-up capital. That comes out of your pocket and the pockets of those you can convince to invest. You need this before you open your doors (figuratively or literally) to your first customers. You might not need too much at first: a domain name, a website, the cost of a reseller package, and so forth. But costs will mount as you continue, especially as you make the effort to look polished and professional. You may well find that you have to go to a bank to secure a loan, possibly even take out a second mortgage on your house or run up painfully large credit card bills.
That’s just one part of the equation. How are you going to produce income for your business? Do you know how much you need to charge customers and what kind of web hosting packages you need to set up to turn a profit? If you’re offering free web hosting or low-cost web hosting in exchange for advertising, do you know how much money you need to make from advertisers? This is one part of the business you can’t afford to fill with pipe dreams. Do your research!
While we’re on the topic of money, are you certain that putting your money into your own business really is the best investment? In economic circles, this is referred to as “opportunity cost.” What didn’t you spend that money on so that you could spend it on starting a web hosting business? Would you get a better return by putting that money into a retirement account, with compounded interest? That’s just one possible alternative; think about the income you’d be giving up on the money you’re putting into this business.
And speaking of income, how long do you think you’ll be able to last without much of one? If you’ve spent most of your adult life getting a regular paycheck, starting your own business will be an eye-opening experience. You’re not getting that wonderful deposit every other week anymore, but your creditors will still want you to pay them just as regularly. If you can get your business started while you’re still employed, that will help, but the very nature of a web hosting business may cause it to intrude on the work time of your “day job.” It’s not a long term solution if you’re serious about making your business more than just a hobby. You may also find that you actually net less money as a business owner than you did as an employee.
Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host – Don’t Look Behind You
Matt Inglot pointed out that “As human beings we tend to find change uncomfortable, but there isn’t much room to be in a placid comfortable nook when you’re an entrepreneur.” He went on to explain how entrepreneurs must always be willing to try new things. As a web host, you have a huge incentive: the competition. If you’re not prepared to adapt to a changing field, they certainly are. And there are plenty of web hosts out there, because many have been attracted to the industry by the same kinds of dreams that are getting you all fired up.
You have to come up with ways to make yourself different from the rest of the field, and stand out positively in the eyes of prospective customers. Indeed, you must continue to offer advantages over the competition after you win your customers over, because there is nothing to keep them from switching to another web host if they aren’t happy – and there are a ton of web hosts who would be happy to have that business.
And there’s no getting around the fact that starting and operating your own business is a lot more stressful than being an employee. Oh, it’s true that some personality types actually find it less stressful, but most people tense up when they constantly have to make decisions with too little information. When it comes to being an entrepreneur, taking risks is in the nature of the beast. Do you try to attract bloggers? How about podcasters? What about controversial websites (and how do you define “controversial”)? Will customers pay more for that new service you’re offering – and will it cover itself with the money you make from it?
There you have the major reasons that you shouldn’t go into the web hosting business. I hope that I’ve busted some of your illusions so you can examine the idea with clearer eyes now. And if I haven’t completely dissuaded you, at least now you know the pitfalls you’re likely to face along the way, and can prepare for them.
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Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid?
Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid?
It’s time to choose! Should you spend some money to get a web hosting solution for your business or get one for free? This article helps you sort out the advantages and disadvantages of each option, and helps you figure out which one is better suited to your needs.Yes, the big moment has finally arrived. Your business is now on the verge of taking the next step forward. It will establish a web presence. This is an important step as from now on your business is able to reach more customers, is able to get more exposure, and hopefully enjoy online recognition.
Space, bandwidth and domain name all come with a cost, but there is a possibility to get them all for free. Resource management principles will probably tell you to choose the free solution.
Nowadays the cost for web hosting services is very reasonable partially because of the technological progress, partially because of the stiff competition on the web hosting market.
Still… why pay for it when you can get it for free?
Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid? – Free web hosting
Dozens, even hundreds of free web hosting providers offer their services on the Internet. Could there be one that meets the needs for your business? Hardly, if any.
Please let me state clearly that this article is not intended to attack or discredit hosts or advertisers. Its only purpose is to assess and understand how can be best met the hosting needs of a business. Any business. And yes, in spite of everything stated here, even the author of this article has resorted at some point in time to the services of free web hosts!
You probably learned too, and at a very small age, that in life everything comes with a price. However, there it is … all over the Internet: Free Web Hosting.
Nothing in this world is free. So why is there free web hosting?
The definition of the term “free” according to The New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary is:
adj. not subject to external restraints or domination; not captive, at liberty; not having to be paid for; unhampered; open to all without restrictions; etc.
adv. without expense; without penalty
v.t. to release from constraint, set free
Therefore a literally free hosting service would mean no restraints, no expenses and no restrictions for the user. Webmasters would design only limited by their imagination and skills. All the space and the bandwidth you would possibly ask for at no cost whatsoever. Real-life scenario? Could anyone really think so?
Indeed nothing in this world comes without a price, even if it is not apparent. And the price you must pay for free web hosting comes in many forms, as free web hosting providers must pay too for bandwidth, not to mention other costs.
While some free web hosts require you to have one of their banners on your web site, others place pop up adds, or flashing advertising messages. So it’s free for you as long as you fulfill their set of requirements and meet their conditions. In addition to this, you should consider that host’s service is free with let’s say 25 MB of space; more space means different conditions and you could have to pay for it.
Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid? – Paid web hosting
If you are billed, it means you own something. There is now a contractual bond between you and your web hosting provider, which in turn must offer you his services. Ownership gives you more control of your online presence. Important as ownership is, it is neither the only nor the biggest advantage of paying for your hosting solution.
The identity of your business would be clear from your URL down to your web content without banners confusing your customers. What I would say, is ask yourself if you would deal with someone offering a product/service similar to the one you are promoting, who was obviously using a free site. If you would, then fine, but if not, don’t expect anyone else to deal with you!
You will have usually sufficient e-mail addresses to accommodate the needs of your business. How serious would you take someone who hands you a business card with e-mail like john.doe@afreewebhostingprovider.com. And more important: would you do business with him?
It’s almost a standard for paid web hosting providers to offer features like PHP and MySQL, features that allow your site to grow along with your business needs. With such features you can easily have an online store, offer your customers the possibility to track their orders, and more.
Often the web hosting provider offers guarantees for the uptime of the server, and this avoids unnecessary frustration for your customers. To complement this, support services of higher quality allow your business to overcome possible technical problems easier and faster.
Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid? – Review
Let’s review the main points of each option.
Free web hosting:
(+) It’s free. No money for space, bandwidth and domain name.
(-) Your URL will contain the mark of the free web-hosting provider and thus would not reflect the identity of your business. Changing providers might result in losing some or all the traffic to your online business.
(-) Required advertising items such as banners, frames etc. have a detrimental effect on your content in terms of accessibility and look, making it very unprofessional.
(-) If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn’t allow it.
(-) You will probably have lower bandwidth than a paid host provides and space could also be restricted.
(-) Features like PHP and MySQL are rather rare for a free web-hosting provider. Some don’t offer FTP access to your website.
(-) It’s common that free hosting providers change their Terms and conditions at some point in time. Consider that no ads today could mean a banner or a pop-up tomorrow. Such changes could mean that the free hosting service is canceled and only paid web hosting services are offered. At this moment either you pay or you lose your web site.
Paid web hosting:
(-) You will have to pay for it. Usually you have to pay for hosting (space and bandwidth) and for the domain name.
(+) You can host your own domain. With your unique domain name changing web hosting providers doesn’t cause you to lose your traffic.
(+) Support is offered by most paid web hosting providers. This usually means 24/7 support via email or live chat and, in some cases, toll-free phone support is available.
(+) The uptime of the server(s) hosting your web site is better than on free hosts, and more and more frequently the web hosting provider offers an uptime guarantee.
(+) The amount of disk space and bandwidth available is very likely to cover the needs of your business.
(+) Features like PHP and MySQL are almost standard for a paid hosting plan. Also you will have FTP access to your website.
It could be tempting to embrace the idea that free web hosting is good point to start from, but it’s not something you would want to consider if you are looking to establish your business as a serious web presence.
In the end it all comes down to this one question: how big are the ambitions that you have for your website?
If you look to make some savings while getting your business online, save time instead and register a domain name. The small amount of money saved on web hosting might cost your business customers, and a loss of image. The cost of a paid web hosting solution is small compared with the freedom it gives to your online presence. Yes, freedom to establish your image, and the way you treat your online presence.
If your online business is important to you, better make that if you care for it at all, when coming to the decision of opting for free or paid web hosting choose paid.
Keep in mind that the success of your online presence will play a significant role in the future growth of your business.
About The Author
Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (www.hostpinpin.com), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more.
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Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid?