A while back, I read in disbelief, the complaints of a mainstream site owner griping about his hosting costs. I’m not sure how much of what he said was bullshit but he was bitching about his $1000 a-month hosting bill and I nearly fell off my chair.
| "If you plan to make money as an adult webmaster then you need paid hosting. This isn’t some fuzzy truth. This is fact. There’s not a TGP, adult directory or search engine that will take you seriously without your own domain and your own paid hosting." |
I was quite familiar with this guy’s site. It was basically full of text-based content with some FLASH animations and it maybe got a few thousand hits a month in its heyday. I wondered if this guy was flat-out lying about his hosting costs because I couldn’t imagine how on earth anyone would allow a hosting company to hose them like that. Even with a managed server, nurtured by one’s own exclusive tech monkey, a thousand bucks for a text site with less-than-medium traffic was just fucking astounding.
Of course I would think that way. I’ve been spoiled by adult hosting. I’m used to reasonable rates and superior customer service. I’ve grown accustomed to an industry where cheaters and bamboozlers are soon found out and prices are competitive because comparisons are publicly known. I sleep soundly because I know that my host has been dealing with bots and hacks and bullshit for freaking ever and they don’t charge extra for basic, sensible security. They don’t try to trick me with upsells or cleverly concealed charges.
If you plan to make money as an adult webmaster then you need paid hosting. This isn’t some fuzzy truth. This is fact. There’s not a TGP, adult directory or search engine that will take you seriously without your own domain and your own paid hosting. You can use sponsor-hosted marketing tools (like galleries, online shops and blogs) to enhance your site but your business will go nowhere unless you pay for a hosting account. That means, when it’s time to go shopping for a hosting company, I recommend you go with an adult host.
What is an Adult Host?
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An adult host is one that is both friendly towards and experienced at working with porn websites. These are companies that cater directly to our field and proudly allow themselves to be listed in our webmaster resource directories. They buy advertising on our industry message boards and they make a point to post and otherwise be part of our online communities. Adult hosts are the ones that rent the booths at our trade conventions. They’re the ones that, through the years, have stood by us and done their best to provide the most secure, most reasonably priced service to the people in our profession.
The problem is, when you get out there and do some research, you might be tempted to choose a mainstream host because some of them charge insanely low prices. We all want to save money but often, the reason that mainstream host’s prices are so cheap is because you’re sharing a server with thousands of other accounts. If just one of your server-mates gets hacked, everything comes crashing down and good luck getting through to tech support either online or via telephone. Let’s say that after waiting on hold for an hour, you finally get a human being on the line and they ask you:
"What’s the name of your domain?"
After an extremely long and terribly uncomfortable pause, you stammer out:
"My domain is fuckmyasswithahairbrush.com."
An even longer, more uncomfortable pause follows and this is how you find out whether or not your mainstream host supports adult websites.
There is none of that embarrassment or interminable waiting for tech support with an adult host. Nobody’s going to laugh at your domain or go running to his or her manager because the name of your site offends his or her delicate sensibilities. As for reliability, security and responsive customer service, adult hosting exceeds mainstream by far.
That poor guy I described in the opening paragraph? He’s still around but he moved his site to Blogger because he couldn’t afford to pay for hosting anymore. I hold my tongue. I don’t tell him that he’s at the mercy of his free host. I don’t pull him aside to ask him exactly who the hell was charging him a thousand bucks a month for text-based site with a couple hundred visitors a week.
Do you want to know where the adult hosts are? They’re right here on Cozy Frog. Just head on over to our Adult Hosting & Domains page.