Help Me/Question What Is The Actual Motive Behind Free Webhosting Services?

[networld]

As you are already aware that there are a large number of web hosting companies that offer free hosting services to customers. But what is the actual motive behind these offers; I mean how they are earning revenue from these free offers? I am sure they are not doing it for charity. I guess following are the main motives behind this business strategy:

• Free web hosting acts as a gateway for potential customers who will opt for a paid service at a later stage. A person who starts using a free service has to opt for a paid version once the site grows with a lot of traffic.
• Some web hosting service uses it as a platform to display advertisements. So, that is another source of revenue for them.
• It also acts as a WoM (Word-of-Mouth) advertising channel. If a customer is satisfied with free hosting services he will say good words about the service which in turn attracts more customers to the company.

Is there any other way, they earn by providing free hosting offers?

 

[Vinaya]

You have rightly pointed the main motives behind free hosting.
Free hosting is a promotional strategy to catch the customer who will buy hosting later
Free hosting is an advertising strategy to display ads on free hosted websites

 

[Pooja Sharma]

No services in the World is for free. There is a motive of getting increased number of users who adds to the company for free but are indirectly increasing the site traffic.Second reason, can be said that if I am using the services for free in regards of Web Hosting, and If I have my website developed, My visitors when start preferring the website more, I have to refer to the paid services. There is a vision of these companies to provide the free services to users, in return to the revenue to get later and if not site traffic is already increasing which gives the website a good position among search engines

 

[dcristo]

Whenever an online service is offered for free, the motive is usually to try and make money through advertising directly to you, or selling your details to a third party that will look to monetize the traffic.

 

[Pooja Sharma]

Whenever we provide our details to any of the website they maintain their own data to use it for future purpose also. I experienced one of the marketing website where I just registered my account and from the next day I started receiving emails.Moreover i started receiving calls for same and have to get listed my number in DND. The website that I used was shopping portal and I am sure that my details was used further.