Got a friend who has his personal website hosted on HostGator. I went there the other day, typed in an URL that points to a file that does not exist. Instead of Apache’s default plain vanilla 404 not found page, I got the following rendered inside my browser.
What is a 404 page?
From Wikipedia,
The 404 or Not Found error message is an HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but either the server could not find what was requested, or it was configured not to fulfill the request and not reveal the reason why.
Basically the web server is telling the browser that the requested resource cannot be found. For example requested file does not exist on the file system, or the application explicitly wants to indicate that the requested resource is missing. Together with HTTP response code, 404 can also send back a HTML page that can be rendered in browsers to show some customised “not found” message.
404 Research Lab has a good collection of many creative 404 Not Found pages. They all try to tell the users that “these are not the droids you are looking for”, but a creative 404 page can sometimes spice up a website.
But with Hosting Company’s Advertisement?
How would you react when you see HostGator’s 404 page popped up on your favourite website? The first thing that came to my mind was — “hey, I did not know that my friend is doing an affiliation with HostGator” (he is in the affiliation commission business). It just shows how mis-leading these 404 pages can be on your website!
Let us see what is on the page:
- A big HostGator logo — make sure you know who is hosting this website.
- A Google AdSense for Search input box.
- A Google Toolbar for Firefox referral banner.
- More advertisement for HostGator, coupon code included!
If the customised 404 page provides a more useful non-cryptic message, and is easier to the eyes than Apache’s default, I am perfectly fine with that. If you put a small logo of your hosting company at the corner, then you start to work on the ethical fine line, especially when you are also serving reseller customers. Some hosts have done it in a non-intruding manner, which can be quite clever sometimes. 
For example, BlueHost sends back its own favicon when 404 is detected for that file.
However, advertisement on 404 pages of your customers’ domain?! I think HostGator has crossed the line and went overboard.
Desperate? Alternate Source of Income? For Charity?
With a bit of digging on the Internet, I found it has already been discussed on WHT more than a month ago. And not only they have decided to monetize 404 pages on their clients’ domains, they have also added banner ads to their control panels.
You would think web hosting is their core-business. I guess HostGator must have got pretty desperated to seek alternate source of income this way.
Of course there is no lack of excuses. Like, donation to charity and further improving the service. It only addresses how HostGator will spend the money it made from the ads, but not what right it has to monetize on its clients’ domains! They might be honourable intent (at least according to their rep on WHT), but a honourable intent is still wrong and unethical if it is not the intend of the owner of that website/domain.
Mixed Responses on Forums
While I am pretty negative on hosting companies monetizing on their customers’ domains, you do get polarised opinions on Web Hosting Talk regarding this issue. Many hated it, but many do not really mind.
My take? I think there are web hosting companies out there who thought, “hey, why didn’t I come up with this idea first?” Especially after HostGator disclosed $60,000/year projected revenue from these 404 pages.
I should not be too surprised to see more and more web hosting companies follow suit and monetize their own customers’ 404 pages as well. Web hosting is such a low margin industry, especially with all these oversold plans, so why not find an alternate source of income?
However, I think if the hosts are thinking this way — they are definitely on the wrong track. There are plenty other value-add services that can be sold to your web hosting clients, but displaying ads on their domains is not one of them. If a host really want to monetize 404 pages, it should let the customers opt-in (instead of opt-out with their own customised page), and use a profit-sharing scheme that will benefit both parties.
What do you think? Do you think it is unethical, or is acceptable? Will you use a web hosting company that monetize on your domains’ 404 pages?
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Even more, imagine the revenue from http://www.2and2.net/files/4614a529d28c0.jpg, with ads in the control panel they are going to sell a lot of templates and ad space….
For cheap hosting I think this is a great idea, if you are getting web hosting that is pretty good for under 10 bucks a month that isn’t bad and if a hosting company can hire an additional support person off this that is great. Now for more expensive hosting, vps hosting, or dedicated it would be unacceptable I think.
Hmm… I don’t think it’s up to hosting companies to draw the line based on price. Instead, they should be responsible for disclosing monetization schemes like HostGator’s before the customer signs up.
If I read in the TOS that HostGator-sponsored 404 pages is part of the deal, I can choose whether or not to accept it. Better yet, if I’m offered some kind of incentive (lower price, or ad revenue sharing), I might think it’s a great opportunity. On the other hand, monetizing customers’ 404 traffic without their knowledge seems like a risky practice that might put the web host on shaky legal ground.
I agree with Isabel here.
From HostGator’s replies, they are doing these as though they are providing extra services for their clients (charity, fund further improvement), but as a client you will never see it as “value-added” services.
Moreover, forcing customers to opt-out, which is not even disclosed during sign up, is considered a big no-no. As I have stated that there are many other ways to provide value-added services to web-hosting customers. Monetize on their own domains through ads behind their back is not one of them.
I do not think pricing should be the determining factor as well. From customers’ point of view, there are only two types — paid and free.
I’m assuming their 404 page only appears if you haven’t set up your own custom 404 page? If that’s the case, I really don’t see a problem - if you haven’t supplied your own 404 page, then presumably you don’t much care what your visitors get shown when they get a 404. If you don’t like the Hostgator one, then just make your own, problem solved.
If you can’t override it with your own, then it’s less acceptable, IMO at least.
Oh, and stop saying “monetize”! :)
David — sorry I do not think that “you haven’t supplied your own 404 page” applies “you don’t much care what your visitors get shown”. Nor does it apply the host gets to paste ads on an URL under your domain.
Many first time web masters do not even know what a 404 page is, but I do not think they will be happy to see HostGator’s ads on their website, especially when they have already paid for the hosting. “Education” is not the solution, because advertising on your customers’ domain without them knowing and having them to opt-out as default is wrong in the first place.
Oh, I would love to spell “monetise” — I am an Australian and would spell British spelling by default. Just that majority of traffic here is coming from US so you might see a bit mixed US and UK spelling here :)
Have to Agree, with Scotty here
I would be very very annoyed, make that pissed off, if someone else, was making some mullah (be it next to nothing) off bandwith, that I was paying for!!!
And furthemore, not Telling/Notifying me, and indoing so, not giving me a chance to see, if I too wanted a slice of the action!!!
Cheeky Buggers….hahahaha…
Don
If you care so much, put up your own 404 page (which you should be doing anyway). Hostgator has every right to make an extra buck or two off of you, unless they disallow custom 404 pages. Although, if they were clear about it, its there right to do that as well.
The 404 pages at hostgator do not use an account’s bandwidth since they are pulled from the shared server IP
I recently decided to move away from Hostgator for this reason. The 404 I could live with, but unsocilicited huge ads snuck into cpanel without any warning.
The HostGator owner also posted on one forum something to the effect of “stupid whinging people” about all the people who complained.
Quite glad they did this in a way, I was going to upgrade to a couple of dedicated server accounts from a lowly shared hosting account. I won’t be bullied into it though.
I’m not really sure how I feel about this. It seems that since custom error pages are a feature on all HostGator packages, most website owners would want to customize their own 404 page. There’s also something be said for the tremendously fun task of redirecting dead pages.
We’re with HostGator. Their service is second to none however I do feel rather intruded that you’re paying for (when it comes to a 404 error page) an ad supported service so to speak. It just seems so unethical to me. I know I can change the 404 pages manually but i think from a pretty large, well marketed hosting provider like HostGator, something like this is a bit out of order.. Yes, stop saying monetize - it’s monetise here in England, ;o).
I bougth my hostgator plan yesterday, I didnt know about this abuse… I have all my clientes in addons domain and i dont like the way they make money abusing of their clients. Can this by fixed manually by me? Can I customize the 404 page? I have alredy try using the cpanel admin but IT DIDNT WORKS!
Stop your Bitching, You can remove it if you want. Dumbasses
It is no longer against google TOS to put adsense for search on a 404 page. I wrote up a post on how to integrate Adsense for search on a 404 page (for wordpress as well as static html websites) here: http://tech.shantanugoel.com/2008/11/06/make-money-out-of-nothing-add-google-adsense-for-search-to-your-404-page.html
I didn’t pay an old account with hostgator (my fault) but now that the site is back on the google ads don’t show. Do you think this has to do with the ads on the 404 page?
I have hostgator account, here’s how I was able to fix the problem:
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