Free web hosting has become an important element in the growth of the Internet over the past several years. The number of firms in this market has expanded rapidly and continues to grow, as have the range and sophistication of the services they provide. The Open Directory seeks to identify and provide accurate and informative links to as many of these hosts as possible.
However, all firms that provide 'free hosting' do not qualify for listings in Hosting/Free and its sub-categories. For our purposes, 'free web hosting' consists of providing space for English-language hypertext and related documents on computers that can be accessed via the Internet to individuals or organizations at no out-of-pocket expense and without requiring the purchase of any other product or service as a pre-condition.
The following template is used to describe sites listed here:
Computers/Internet/Commercial_Services/Web_Hosting/Free/Arts_and_Humanities is limited to hosts which particularly cater to the needs and interests of artists, writers, scholars, scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals.
For the purposes of this category, ''free web hosting'' consists of providing space for English-language hypertext and related documents on computers that can be accessed via the Internet to individuals or organizations at no out-of-pocket expense and without requiring the purchase of any other product or service as a pre-condition.
Entries submitted to Web_Hosting/Free/Arts_and_Humanities should be limited to hosts which particularly cater to the needs and interests of artists, writers, scholars, scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals.
Hosts which provide only minimal ''free hosting'' as an inducement to purchase their fee-based services will not usually be listed here; nor will sites with broken links or ''Under Construction'' notices.
Submissions from ''co-branded'' or ''private-label'' hosts will only be accepted if they provide substantial original content.
Submissions from ''affiliate'' or ''referral'' agents and those with redirected URLs will not be knowingly accepted and will be deleted when identified.
Computers/Internet/Commercial_Services/Web_Hosting/Free/Business is limited to hosts which particularly cater to the needs and interests of firms or individuals offering goods or services for sale on either a business_to_business or business_to_consumer basis, and to sites which support these activities.
Typically, hosts supporting the needs of business sites will provide, at a minimum, support for FTP, some form of CGI scripting, and subdomain URLs.
For our purposes, ''free web hosting'' consists of providing space for English-language hypertext and related documents on computers that can be accessed via the Internet to individuals or organizations at no out-of-pocket expense and without requiring the purchase of any other product or service as a pre-condition.
This category is *NOT* for websites that are freely hosted. Please do not submit such sites here. Instead, submit them under the category relevant to their content.
For the purposes of this category, 'free web hosting' consists of providing space for English-language hypertext and related documents on computers that can be accessed via the Internet to individuals or organizations at no out-of-pocket expense and without requiring the purchase of any other product or service as a pre-condition.
Entries submitted to Hosting/Free/Sports_Related should be limited to hosts which particularly cater to the needs and interests of amateur or professional sports or recreational organizations, and individuals who are fans or supporters of such groups or activities.
Hosts which provide only minimal 'free hosting' as an inducement to purchase their fee-based services will not usually be listed here; nor will sites with broken links or 'Under Construction' notices.
Submissions from 'co-branded' or 'private-label' hosts will only be accepted if they provide substantial original content.
Submissions from 'affiliate' or 'referal' agents and those with redirected URLs will not be knowingly accepted and will be deleted when identified.
Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosting/Free/Sports_Related/ is limited to hosts which particularly cater to the needs and interests of amateur or professional sports or recreational organizations, and individuals who are fans or supporters of such groups or activities.