Another dinosaur from the beginning days of the Internet has just announced that they would stop offering free hosting services. The company began as a free web hosting service in the late 90s, similar to what services such as WordPress.com is offering users now. Users could join districts in the virtual city where they would create their websites in. This was very similar to what GeoCities started to offer two years earlier.
If you are now visiting the FortuneCity website you are greeted with the following text:
Dear FortuneCity Customers,
We’ve enjoyed providing free hosting the past twelve years, but due to rising costs it is no longer feasible for us to provide the free service. As a result, your free website will no longer resolve as of April 30th, 2012.
You can log into your website before April 30th to retrieve your files. If you are looking for a website hosting provider, transfer your files to Dotster hosting. FortuneCity customers can get 80% off a new Dotster hosting plan by using coupon code FORTUNE80 at checkout.
The announcement basically states that FortuneCity will close all free accounts as of April 30, 2012. From that day on, free websites will no longer be accessible on the Internet. The reason given are increased costs to host the free service, which basically means that the ad revenue is not enough to keep offering the service. Customers with free accounts can log into their websites until that day to export their files to their local computer or the hosting company Dotster (if they get a paid account there).
New users who try to sign up for a free website will also be directed to the announcement on the front page. It appears as if FortuneCity will continue to offer paid hosting accounts and websites, and that only the free accounts are removed from the service.
To be honest, I have not seen a FortuneCity website in a long time. The same was true when Geocities was still operational. The biggest problem that free Fortunecity users face is that they cannot redirect their original site to a new one, which in turn means that they will lose all of the traffic and links that point to their free site.
What’s your take on the announcement?
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