Are Free Subdomains Worth Anything?

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a previous
question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one) offer
free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree to accept
banner advertising and also accept a name constructed along the lines
of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with Google?
Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain of my own,
will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting backlinks from
relevant sites?

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

My thanks to all who reply.

"whitesmith" <apasserby (AT) hushmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a previous
question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one) offer
free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree to accept
banner advertising and also accept a name constructed along the lines
of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with Google?
Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain of my own,
will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting backlinks from
relevant sites?

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

John Bokma wrote:

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?
--
John

They'll think you know something about SEO when they find a site for you

on page one of your serp is what they'll think! They won't think much of
you if your site is listed at number 900 will they? Besides they won't
even be able to find you to think anything about you in the first place!
What's with all the seo ethics? Are you doing websites for nuns or
something?

__/ [John Bokma] on Sunday 20 November 2005 22:47 \__

"whitesmith" <apasserby (AT) hushmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a previous
question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one) offer
free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree to accept
banner advertising and also accept a name constructed along the lines
of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with Google?
Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain of my own,
will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting backlinks from
relevant sites?

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?

In the long run, you might wish to incorporate elements that require site
ownership. You may start with a very rudimentary page, but things expand in
due time.

Many bloggers from Blogspot, Typepad, Blogger, LiveJournals and so forth have
moved to their own domain with a Drupal, or WordPress, or TextPattern
installation. When I started my site it was merely a small collection of
pages and it was only last year that I move to my own domain. I wish I had
done this in the very first place, but I never imagined it would become more
than a 1-pager.

Domain name and hosting are not quite so expensive nowadays. If you are a
psychologist, I am sure you can afford it. A couple of clients will cover
the costs already. That gain from having your own domain will probably
attract more than a couple.

Funny enough, I moved to a separate domain only because my E-mail address
contained somebody else's full name, which was odd.

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Software patents destroy innovation
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
3:50am up 17 days 23:44, 4 users, load average: 0.04, 0.22, 0.28
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms

whitesmith wrote:

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

You're cynical! If you want to see what free subdomains are worth do a

search for 'phentermine' and the first 3 pages of that serp are filled
with free subdomains that get what I call 'The Google Boost'. Most of
the free sites at phentermine are free subdomains and some are just free
web hosts, free blog sites, and some dns sites. If that's the only way
you can get to page one or two of your serp I say go for it! Real
domains are preferable but if you can't get one there try the free ones
which get an artificial huge boost by google. Not all subdomains will
work and even when you get ones that do work they may only work for a
few months or less and drop like a rocket and then you have to find new
ones that are getting the google boost. To find them is easy. Just
regularly check the serp 'phentermine' because those free subs there are
all from the same person who really knows his free subs. Basically he
constantly signs up for hundreds of them and spams them at guestbooks,
and blog comments, most don't work that he gets but he only needs about
ten or so to work at a time. You can save all the work by just getting
the excat same ones he gets and posting for them. For the username of
the sub use your keywords. You'll have to live with pop-ups and banner
ads with the free subs though but hell isn't it worth it to have a bunch
of sites on page one of your serp? I love how google gives a major boost
in ranking for free subs and host and blogs, nothing like following
their own guidelines about link popularity is there? Now if you believe
in google's guidelines then you also believe in santa claus and the
tooth fairy as well but that's another story....

Sam <. (AT) mail (DOT) com> wrote:

John Bokma wrote:

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?
--
John

They'll think you know something about SEO when they find a site for you
on page one of your serp is what they'll think!

Yeah, sure, if they are looking for SEO, maybe.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

__/ [John Bokma] on Sunday 20 November 2005 22:47 \__

"whitesmith" <apasserby (AT) hushmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a
previous question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one)
offer free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree
to accept banner advertising and also accept a name constructed
along the lines of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with
Google? Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain
of my own, will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting
backlinks from relevant sites?

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost,
but perhaps I'm cynical.

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?

In the long run, you might wish to incorporate elements that require
site ownership. You may start with a very rudimentary page, but things
expand in due time.

Yup, and then we get the "how can I redirect bla bla" questions. One can
have his/her own website for 19.95 USD/year, including domain name
registration, maybe even cheaper. Why go through all the troubles? If you
want to start a shop do you start on the garbage dump in an old barrel?

Many bloggers from Blogspot, Typepad, Blogger, LiveJournals and so
forth have moved to their own domain with a Drupal, or WordPress, or
TextPattern installation. When I started my site it was merely a small
collection of pages and it was only last year that I move to my own
domain. I wish I had done this in the very first place, but I never
imagined it would become more than a 1-pager.

Domain name and hosting are not quite so expensive nowadays. If you
are a psychologist, I am sure you can afford it. A couple of clients
will cover the costs already.

At 19.95 USD a year, I would say one session :-D.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

On 20 Nov 2005 13:04:42 -0800, "whitesmith" <apasserby (AT) hushmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a previous
question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one) offer
free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree to accept
banner advertising and also accept a name constructed along the lines
of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

Hyphens - are better, see Google archives of this NG for details or
here http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/dom...me-choice.html

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with Google?

Doesn't hurt you in the sense of a penalty, but if it's a standard
link (no javascript for example) you'll be sending links away from a
site of yours with no benefit returned. Blogspot used to have one link
to the main Blogger home page, now it's got that search bar thing at
the top that has multiple links from it that Google does understand as
links. This means a lot of link benefit is wasted if you use Blogspot
for blogs.

Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain of my own,
will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting backlinks from
relevant sites?

Of course you can just like you do with any domain. Look at all the
Blogspot and similar free sites that have plenty of high PR pages.

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

They are worth less than a sub-domain on a site of yours for the
following very important reason. What if the host of the sub-domain
decides it is no longer offering them and it closes?

All that effort wasted. If you are going to build something important
make sure you have full control over it and that means on a domain you
own.

Other than that there is no difference between a site on a free
sub-domain and a sub-domain of your own domain, Google etc... will
treat them exactly the same way.

My thanks to all who reply.

David
--
Free Search Engine Optimization Tutorial
http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/

On 20 Nov 2005 13:04:42 -0800, "whitesmith" <apasserby (AT) hushmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

Hi all,

I'm the psychologist who got some good directions here from a previous
question, so I'm back with two others.

I've noticed that some hosting services (prohosting.com is one) offer
free webhosting and free domain names to webmasters who agree to accept
banner advertising and also accept a name constructed along the lines
of my_name.their_prefix.their_domain_name.com.

My questions: First, does a banner ad hurt me in any way with Google?
Second, since I only get a subdomain and not a real domain of my own,
will it ever be possible to build up PR by getting backlinks from
relevant sites?

My suspicion is that free sitea are worth exactly what they cost, but
perhaps I'm cynical.

Sometimes you can make a go of a freebie site - but understand in
advance that freebie site URLs sometimes, in another person's mind,
has them thinking negatively if having a few bad expereinces with
similar URL sites. Then freebie sites have restrictions that may be
limiting - such as amount of bandwidth, their ads, and sometimes
limited to their editors. If you can deal with that then you may be
content using a free site host.

When a service offers a domain name as part of the package, read the
fine print to see what restrictions there are to that domain name, how
easy/difficult it will be to transfer it (if/when you decide to leave
that host), and etc.[1] You don't want to "fall in love' with a
domain name and promote the heck out of it only to find out your host,
and not you, has full control over it and if you leave that site host
- you also leave that domain name and have to start over.

If you want to pay a small hosting fee just to feel more comfortable
where you are hosting at - shop around. You could possible get some
ideas of referrals or places to comparison "shop" at over at
alt.www.webmasters group.

Carol

[1] Has happened! Then there are places like Yahoo - where you can pay
to register a domain name, when hosting a site there, but I have heard
more than one person share about having to jump through hoops on
transferring it.

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 03:58:14 GMT, Sam <. (AT) mail (DOT) com> wrote:

John Bokma wrote:

For a commercial site? What do your visitors think of you?
--
John

They'll think you know something about SEO when they find a site for you
on page one of your serp is what they'll think! They won't think much of
you if your site is listed at number 900 will they? Besides they won't
even be able to find you to think anything about you in the first place!
What's with all the seo ethics? Are you doing websites for nuns or
something?

<thinks>Mmmmmmm...nuns</thinks>

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ seo (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
The buffalo have gone