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There are many important factors in having a successful online adult business. One of those will be your web host. This is the company that will store the different HTML and image files that make up your web site, and who will be sure that when someone types in your domain name, your web site actually appears!
Free Host, Virtual Host, or Dedicated? A free host is one that will not charge you anything for giving your website a home, but usually they will add a number of banners to each of your pages. This can hinder getting your site accepted at Link Lists and TGPs because of the number of ads on the page; also some free hosts are known for housing spammers so their IPs may be banned. Still, many gurus in the biz got their start from free hosts, and if you do some careful checking around you should be able to find one that will not redirect your traffic or add too many banners to your pages. Usually a free host will give you a subdomain name, such as http://yourname.thefreehost.com.

Once you get serious about your business, it's time to buy your own domain name and find a virtual host. A virtual host is one that will charge you a fee, but will not redirect your traffic or put banners on your pages. What you're paying for is space on their server, bandwidth to show your site to surfers, and any technical support you may need. Other sites will be on this server, and the number of sites total can affect how quickly each site loads. Be careful - the cheapest host is not always the best! Again, ask people you trust who they're using as a host and how their service is. Your site and your business depends on your hosting. Be sure to read the host's Terms Of Service and Acceptable Use Policies - many hosts do not allow adult content on their servers. You don't want to pre-pay for service and then find out you can't use it!

When you have a number of domains under your belt and are pulling so much bandwidth that you've outgrown virtual hosting, it's probably time to look at dedicated hosting. This is where you will have the entire server to yourself. You won't be sharing bandwidth with anyone, and your sites' performance will generally be much better. There are managed dedicated servers, where the host still adds your domains to the server and takes care of the software upgrades, etc.; and there are unmanaged dedicated servers where you are responsible for everything. If you're not sure how to run a server, go for a managed dedicated server. It will most likely be a little more expensive, but it will save you a lot of headaches!


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