February 20, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A report published Friday by Internet research group Netcraft (netcraft.com) pointed to a resurgence in ad-supported free Web hosting, led by major product pushes from some of the largest players in the Internet business.
Last week, Microsoft launched a beta version of Office live, a free ad-supported Web hosting service for small businesses. Yahoo! and Google have reportedly seen strong growth in their own free hosting programs. And domain registrar Go Daddy has begun offering free blogging and ad-supported Web hosting with its domain registrations.
The resurgence in free hosting, says Netcraft, is due in part to the success of contextual advertising on Web sites. Google reported ad revenues of $1.1 billion on its own sites and $799 million from sites using its AdSense program during its most recent quarter.
The Office Live service offers free a free domain with hosting to users of its free Basic service, which includes a domain name, 30 megabytes of storage, five email accounts and traffic analysis software.
