Any Big Sponsors Willing To Start A Free Hosted Blog Platform Like Thumblogger?
 

I find it is easier to get traffic to smaller blogs when they are hosted on a subdomain that has a lot of incoming links.

I'm tired of dealing with people that aren't trustworthy and that are always pulling links.

I need a well known sponsor to set up a copy of MU that anyone can use. I will get the ball rolling by copying over 2k blogs that I now have on other free hosts.

You must be willing to run a set of directories that are set up like toplists and you must have a support forum. Twans main freehost is 1,300 in Alexa right now. Considering the fact that he is one guy running everything and doesn't own any sponsor program I'm sure a good sponsor with a solid rep could make a killing.

Just require the users to keep a text link with their affiliate code at the top of each blog.

I can also bring lots of other bloggers on board. I can personally bring in over 10k a day hits into the system and I know other webmasters that would bring a lot more.

You must be running a very well known and solid program. I won't deal with anyone that is shady.

Was just going through a few of my blogs and I already see dozens that have been removed from directories. Why would any directory owner remove blogs from directories that are run like toplists? It makes no sense other than they don't really know how to keep track of links.

open 1 yourself then

ARS got one

http://smut.com/blogs/

Mayors still had porncity as their free blog host last time I checked, no personal experience with the free hosting itself

What site is that?

What is MU?

http://mu.wordpress.org/

Lets you run multiple blogs easily

Thank you! Do you know if it is possible to setup a custom header/footer with it?

Mike Hit me up we can do it!

You can use templates just like any other wordpress installation.

Some free hosts will have a few preset themes to use that have their own banners/links in them so they can skim some of the traffic for themselves.

Oh, thank you! I was thinking about this some time ago... but forgot :) Now I WILL set up a "blognetwork" with this one.....! Sweet!

Why would you build your business based on free hosting that can disappear at any time?

:Oh crap

>You must be willing to run a set of directories

Explain this a little more

blog directories... thumblogger runs all the big ones, like pornblogworld

Nice idea, Mike! It would be great if someone could do that.

I'm pretty sure that porncity and smut blogs are run like I was saying.

they have tons of links at the top. I don't believe that they use your affiliate links in those text adds. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've used smut blogs before and it didn't look appealing to me.

There is one big reason that Twan is so successful. Thumblogeer and his two other free hosts only have a small text link at the top.

Most other blog hosts have several big links in the header and I think that's why they don't attract many webmaster,

If a sponsor was to have an affiliate link code in the header it would make them even more desirable as a host. I talk to a lot of webmasters that are looking for an alternative to Thumblogger.

I actually think that an MU install would work even better than twans system.

I'm already using another host that uses MU but he seems to have no desire to build links to his domain.

When your asking a webmaster to use your hosting you have to do something more. You can't just set up a domain and let them build on it. You have to do some of the link building yourself. Once you get the foundation built the word will get out and people will flock to it.

I do think that a free host has to come with a set of directories and a directory submitter program.

I also have a lot of little ideas that would probably add to your success but I don't want to go into them here until I see a sponsor that is serious about building this.

I still don't see why you don't set it up yourself, it's not exactly hard to setup wordpress MU....

why are you unable to do it yourself?

I'd rather copy the text across another subdomain and then copy it again to my hosted domain. Reuse reuse you know.

www.fleshblogger.com :thumbsup

If it's not run by a major sponsor that has their rep on the line I probably won't be interested in using it. Free hosts are getting a bad name lately because of shady practices.

Hey Mike,
I think fleshblogger is run by the guys from Morph Feeds and Rehabdollars. They are not fly by nighters

I really don't want to use something unless it's run by a really well known sponsor. I mean I want someone who is at least in the top 50.

Also they need to let their webmasters use their affiliate link codes in the banner or text link they use in the header. I'm not looking for someone that is making an exception for certain webmasters. I'm looking for it to be common practice.

Mike hit me up ICQ 768558
I'm very interested in this and think We can take care of whatever you need.
This sounds like a really good idea and thats what we need around here.

Tom

could a standered server cope with this?

In scale, probably not. 3xTom, let's talk on Monday about this :thumbsup

Brad

bump for more

I have several MUs on virtual machines with thousands of blogs loading just fine, if you get as big as thumblogger (it won't happen), then you'll probably need to get a few servers

startign this sort of setup at this moment in time - not sure if that's such a good idea, it's all about timing: neither surfer nor (many) webmasters care about blogs anymore

consider it done

I understand from your post that if the sponsor starts freehost.com for blogs and builds links to it, the link "juice" should carry to the subdomains under freehost.com?

I don't think that works.

They dont get juice, i think they do get indexed faster.

I'm not sure about that but I think it's a combination of getting links to the host and to the directories. You have to get traffic flowing through your directories to give the bloggers an incentive to submit their blogs and try to drive traffic back to you.

I do know that when I use blog hosts that have only a few incoming links I get low SE numbers. When I use ones that have a few hundred links I do much better. When I use the ones that have closer to 1,000 I struggle to get google to love me but it's not as hard as dealing with the ones that have only a few incoming links.

I will get in touch with some of you guys that have expressed interest but unless you run at least a medium sized sponsor program and have a completely unblemished reputation I probably won't be interested in proceeding with this.

I'm looking for something long term, someone I can build my business with. Someone who will take my suggestions into consideration.

What is really needed is a link trading system that is broken down by niche, automatically updates / adds / removes links, and scans daily to see if everything is up.

I have been rolling something like this around in my head for weeks. Where everyone gives a oneway links but gets a backlink from someone else in the circle but with all the extras you speak of too.

Id love to develop it...

Updates? bump i want to know thanks.

The reason any right minded person would build their business on a free hosted blog service out of their control is beyond me. Maybe use a few as feeders or for some backlinks but goddamn ... making it the cornerstone of your business is utter madness!

live and learn :2 cents:

i concur :thumbsup

Saved me the trouble of typing it out.

I think any sponsor screwing with this is likely to be wasting their time and money. As a service, it's not going to be aimed at the kind of affiliates you want -- the ones building for the long haul.

This really made me laugh though: That's been true since as long as I've been in the business. The very first time I posted on this board in 2002, it was with a question about free hosting, and the answer I got was advice to stay the hell away. It was good advice, too. Free hosts have <b>never</b> been reliable or safe, and they always end up screwing the people that relied on them. Even the ones run in all honesty eventually die or change business models to the detriment of the people who built sites on them.

This is very true. I remember the good old day's back in 99-00 LOL. A header and a footer that was ~800x200(keep in mind that screen resolution was often 800x600) and still they would skim traffic every now and then :P

We have free hosting and 1 click wordpress install and you can promote any of our programs.

not looking to make it a cornerstone, but its a start of have a few hundred or few thousand like mike, then if one or two drop i guess its not as bad, also i some people can afford to but a few hundred domains at one tome and host them while waiting to make money