Use of Free Web Hosts ?

[OBR]

I have noticed that competitors are doing incredibly well in some niches using free web hosts. In one case a site had 5 or the 6 top Google results for the exact same page (using diferent free hots like www.freewebs.com). Looks like spam to me but that's my opinion. The site has dozens of free sites with basically the same content.

Google will probably catch them at some point, but when?

I was thinking of trying some free pages for some "new content". Does anyone know what the pros and cons are?

[webmasterjunkie]

That's an excellent question. I used to host my current website on a free host, with different content. I checked out a few other free hosts after I swa your post.

The only thing I can think is how sometimes google will rank the sub-directories in your site based on the rank of the main page.

The Alexa rank is fair on the registered domain names of the example sites, but I don't know if they correspond to the PageRank.

Gotta be some trick.

[info202]

I have 2 free sites with Tripod.. that I use to be able to uploads client's drafts....
They do not have any links from my site... but both have a PR of 3....They have no outgoing or incoming links....
that is strange!

[flood6]

They do not have any links from my site... but both have a PR of 3....They have no outgoing or incoming links....
that is strange!

I think that is what people are calling ghost PR (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ghost+pr%22&sourceid=firefox&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8). Most of those results talk about it being a "guesstimate" of PR, but I've also heard it used in a context that it is PR awarded to the "parent" domain and passed along to any of its subdomains or folders.

It is an interesting little PR quirk.

[bbauer]

I've been using them for years with good success. Some of them I just use to store files on and then link to them and some of them I use shrinkmylink.com to cloak the link so it don't show up as a free site and I use lots of other tricks too.

I have about a dozen blogs and well over 3,000 active webpages out there and most of them get top rankings on huge numbers of different keywords.

I get top billing on keywords I never even intended to be keywords. I spend a lot of time checking my logs to see what people are searching for so I can put up keyword rich pages that are on topic for the most popular searchs.

But what is so surprising is the number of people who are searching for collection agencies every day without fail. Hundreds and hundreds of people are out there actively searching for collection agencies.

And I found that out quite by accident by having a page on my message board that is nothing but a huge listing of collection agencies. About a year or so ago I noticed that page was getting a lot of attention so I started actively building pages that are nothing but huge lists of collection agencies from all over the U.S. And that is when my business really took off.

What I did was put a paragraph or two at the top of each of those pages asking them to send me an email telling me why they were searching for a collection agency. And people did that by the droves and are still doing it. And I am able to turn a lot of them into paying customers.

Strange what watching your website logs will reveal sometimes and how that information can be put to good use getting even more customers.

People search for the darndest things. LOL

[OBR]

The results for a search of "Playtech casinos" has one site in each of the top 8 spots on google. Site is a poor description as it is really the same one page repeated with a different heading and different free web pages. The search has a modest 103,000 hits.

I am trying to figure out how they are scoring so high.
Is it the name in the URL?
Is it the link text from many of its own pages?

[jayantagpt]

May I know the other free hosting with php services , anyone using it , even I need to try some tricks , do all SEO people use free hosts.

Thanks in advance

[jacobwissler]

I had been using SBC, recently changed to GoDaddy for major cost savings. Was this a mistake? Can being hosted by GoDaddy put me in a "bad neighborhood."? Thus far (60 days) service appears equal to SBC, what it's what I can't see that worries me. Any suggestions?

[DisasterMan]

May I know the other free hosting with php services , anyone using it , even I need to try some tricks , do all SEO people use free hosts.

Thanks in advance
I don't know of any free hosts with PHP but I got some incredibly cheap space with LOADS of features from bigbytes.net
25mb for $8pa is perfect for small projects. Although there were a couple of brief outages months ago I have had no problems with them since.

DisasterMan

[jawn_tech]

Yes there are a slew of free hosts with PHP. I don't have the name handy, but if you're looking for any you can PM me. A google search should turn up a few as well. I find them by adding "reviews" next to the search query and find sites that compare them with user ratings, etc.

One thing to watch with free hosts is make sure the URL is not provided by the host. (Meaning, own your own domain, which you all here know). I've heard of bad experiences when a site became popular/successful, but still well within the bandwidth/traffic limit, the free service was canceled and a similar-themed site was put in its place.

Free hosting can be a good marketing research tool (for the host), having access to traffic information and watch which kind of sites perform well.

[Ronen]

I've also heard it used in a context that it is PR awarded to the "parent" domain and passed along to any of its subdomains or folders.


It makes sense. After all, subdomains are spidered the same way that other folders of content are being spidered.

[Mel]

Search engines consider subdomains as independant seperate domains with their own rankings, not as folders of the parent site.