Giving away free hosting accounts

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Posted by biosphere, 04-23-2002, 12:49 PM
Hi! Hope this is in the right forum, if not please move it. I've got this reseller account that I use for my own domains, but mostly I give away accounts for free, since I don't really use the space/transfer. Lately I've received tons of mail from people asking if I would be able to host them as well. So I started to think seriously about it last night, and thought - why not? I can afford another reseller account, not a large one - but one with 1GB space/15GB transfer wouldn't be a problem. So, my questions to you are: How many free accounts would you recommend putting on a reseller account like this? The reason I ask is that I know NOTHING about "overselling". And what would be a "good" specification for such a free account when it comes to transfer/bandwidth? 50MB storage and 2GB transfer? MySQL? PHP? CGI? SSI? Ok, thanks for reading this. biosphere Last edited by biosphere; 04-23-2002 at 01:54 PM.
Posted by Vex, 04-23-2002, 01:11 PM
I believe it is suppose to be in the Special Offers topic.
Posted by biosphere, 04-23-2002, 01:57 PM
Yes, sorry - I think I messed up the name of the thread. What I meant was that it would be nice with some advice on how much it would be safe to oversell.
Posted by Vex, 04-23-2002, 02:07 PM
Yea, then it is in the right one
Posted by Jedito, 04-23-2002, 02:17 PM
I think that's the correct forum. Answering to your question, you wont oversell, because you'll give away that accounts free. So, I suggest to put hard limits for those accounts, just to be carefull that you wont be paying at the end of the month a fortune.
Posted by 21inchguns, 04-23-2002, 11:00 PM
yeah, definitely do not oversell on the free accounts.......people that take free accounts are usually the type of people that will use every bit of bandwidth they can.......... and plus you are giving it free.......so if I were you I would not give out more than 1GB transfer..... cheers
Posted by Aussie Bob, 04-23-2002, 11:18 PM
I'd be wary of giving away free accounts. You attract all kinds of dubious sites [spammers etc]. These sites too will have a negative effect on your own personal sites. It's nice you want to give away these accounts but one wonders why bother?? These people you give away free accounts to will scream just as loud as any paid client when their site is down. Why bother if there's no $$$$$ in it for you? Are you practicing for an up and coming hosting venture or something??
Posted by biosphere, 04-24-2002, 07:13 AM
Thank you, I've received some good advice here. To answer the question about why I bother about this: it's to learn something new. The reason I bought a reseller account was so that I could sign up for domains and easily get them hosted without having to look around for another host. But after I've started taking on some "free riders" I've certainly learned a lot. oh, and I've had my share of rude and impolite people. I'm gonna think about the overselling bit, I definately don't want to be stuck with a huge transfer bill every month... Once again, thank you all for replying. biosphere

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