1 and 1 getting despirate?

[temi]

I wonder if 1 and 1 makes any profit with all this desperate promotion they seem to be doing. Yesterday I got and email from them promoting to pay £300 for each referral.

What if the customer buy hosting package that is worth less than £300 per year and left in the first year?

[[Tsohost] Darren]

The headline offer might say "£300 per referral" but i imagine that there are numerous hoops to jump through: they might have to sign-up for specific products and stay for a specified time before you get your money.

Considering 1&1 put so much into advertising and bought Fasthosts for £60m not long ago, I have a hunch they're making money. If only their service was so much better, they'd have no need to spend so much on advertising - it's not unusual to see 6,8,10,12 page spreads dedicated to 1&1 in computer magazines these days. Their average cost per acquisition must be huge.

[temi]

. Their average cost per acquisition must be huge.

Yes, I agree with you on this, they advertise like mad an give a lot of stuff "free" as part of their hosting package.
I am very suspicious of any thing that is "free" because it just does not exist.

If you sell good product/services, there is not need for mega gimmicks like they seem to be adding to their hosting bundle.

[neilrbowen]

They just want to maintain their market share of "big" id guess, so even if its a loss to get a customer that means a competitor is not getting the client.

[Dimitar Christoff]

i love 1and1, been with them for a few years now, i currently admin 3 servers (at 50 quid a month). would refer people and do recommend them for free, this is now a nice little bonus - shame i just signed up a site i'm working on w/o the bonus... pfff

[freethought]

The £300 payments are only for the Linux/Microsoft/Managed Enterprise servers which are £250+VAT/month anyway

[tb987]

i love 1and1, been with them for a few years now, i currently admin 3 servers (at 50 quid a month). would refer people and do recommend them for free, this is now a nice little bonus - shame i just signed up a site i'm working on w/o the bonus... pfff

I used to use 1and1 for some .com and .org sites for the UK market (four years ago). They dropped out of the UK results for Google and had to move them to a UK host. Do you still see a penalty for .com and tlds hosted in Germany on 1and1 servers but for the UK market.

[temi]

They dropped out of the UK results for Google and had to move them to a UK host. Do you still see a penalty for .com and tlds hosted in Germany on 1and1 servers but for the UK market.

But 1 and 1 have UK servers. When I owned this forum it was hosted with them at their UK data centre and the SERps result in G was find.

[tb987]

I didn't realize that, the shared hosting is still in Germany for sure. Or it could be that they have used UK ips in Germany - do you not own this forum now???? A traceroute would tell

[xoozoo]

I didn't realize that, the shared hosting is still in Germany for sure. Or it could be that they have used UK ips in Germany - do you not own this forum now???? A traceroute would tell

Hi, You can find details on the new owner, Neil from BB-Dev, in this post - http: //forums.ukwebmasterworld.com/community-fun-area/13956-uk-ww-has-new-owner.html - And I believe the forum is now hosted on one of their own server in UK now.

Cheers,
Sean