If you are hosting you site on a free hosting service, you might have some cause for concern.
In a new report, McAfee says spammers are now targeting free web hosting services in a big way, and are increasingly turning to free-hosting websites to provide spam URLs.
In its “January 2010 Spam Report” (PDF), McAfee states the trend is turning into an “all-out gold rush” as there are many new free hosting services around. According to the report, all of the sites most heavily abused by spammers seem to be related to 0catch.com, which serves up a number of free-hosting sites to anonymous users.
Free hosting services are a prime target for spammers because such sites may have been around for a while and have legitimate traffic associated with them, the report explained.
Although there is nothing to indicate active collusion between the free-hosting websites and the spammers that use them, this should be a lesson to legitimate businesses looking for free hosting. You get what you pay for.
If you have a website or planning to build one, it’s highly recommended that you choose a good, reliable hosting service. These days, the prices of web hosting services are very low, especially if you choose to use shared hosting.
