What is the minimum activity requirement to avoid account deletion?

[Moongazer]

My hosting account username is: epiz_29972096
The website managed under that account is: moongazer.epizy.com

The above account is my second go at creating a web-hosting account with Infinity Free. My first attempt ended by my account being deleted by Infinity Free for non-activity without prior warning. I would like to avoid this happening again, but I can find no information in the terms of service about the minimum activity requirement to avoid this. All I could find there in relation to this requirement was the phrase “extended periods of inactivity” given as one of the reasons for which Infinity Free may terminate an account. The only specific information that can be inferred from those words is that there must be more than one such period, since the plural (“periods”) is used. Can anyone tell me, specifically:
(1) how long such a period must be to qualify as “extended”
(2) what things qualify as “activity”, e.g. if I have not logged into my hosting account for a long time, but during that time I did upload new files to my website or update existing ones via FTP, does that qualify as “activity” for the purpose of complying with that requirement?

[KangJL]

This?

How do I prevent my account from being deleted?

Your website only needs a few hits every month. You do not need to log into any panel to keep your account active.

[YT_Xaos]

@Moongazer

My first attempt ended by my account being deleted by Infinity Free for non-activity without prior warning

InfinityFree sends emails to tell you that you have been inactive. You should check your spam every once in a while.

[Moongazer]

@YT_Xaos,
I checked the Spam folder and you are right, there was an inactivity warning there, but:
(a) It was sent only 2 days before the deletion occurred, so not much of a heads up,
(b) unlike the post deletion advice, and all earlier emails relating to that hosting account, which came from infinityfree.net, the inactivity warning came from epizy.com. Consistency of sender address for notifications would be very useful and it might explain why that warning ended up in the spam folder, and
(c) (Get this:) the account name mentioned in it (in both the subject line and the body) was not mine!

[YT_Xaos]

Then maybe someone used your email for their account.

[Moongazer]

@YT_Xaos,
Nope, that’s not what happened. I just checked again and I noticed two things:

(1) Although the warning (from epizy.com) said the account would be deleted in 2 days time, the post-deletion notification (from infinityfree.net) was dated 4 days later. I don’t know for sure when the deletion itself occurred, but if the post-deletion notification was sent on the same day as the deletion, then they may have allowed an extra two days grace before deleting the account, though even 4 days is still pretty short notice.

(2) The warning notice had a long link at the end, prefaced by the sentence:
“If you require this account re-activated, please click the following link”
On close inspection of the link, I found the correct account username, epiz_28412077, embedded in it, though the account name mentioned earlier in the email body and in the subject line was completely different in both format and content. That one was “account p4biohnr.epizy[dot]com”.

Also, I now see that the warning email contains the specific answer to my question: “Your … account has received less than 5 visitors in the past 30 day period.” It’s good to know in hindsight, but it would be appropriate for this minimum requirement to be specified where it actually belongs, i.e. in the terms of service, where, as I said previously, the only mention of an activity requirement merely says, “extended periods of inactivity” as one of the reasons listed for which Infinity Free may delete an account. It could (and, legally, probably should) be more informative as to what, specifically, is the required minimum activity.

@KangJL linked to a recent reply by Admin to a similar question asked by MaxiTrauma, and even that answer was similarly vague, saying “a few hits every month.” Do we have to guess what “a few” means? If the minimum is actually 5, then why not say so clearly so that new users can be properly informed of what the minimum requirement actually is?

Additionally, this requirement is not really within the ability of the site owner alone to comply with. I can’t control how many people visit my site or how often they visit, so it’s not a very fair choice of criterion for activity. Another well-known provider of free web-hosting requires site owners to login to their hosting account once a month. At least that is usually within an account holder’s control.

[Greenreader9]

@Moongazer

Although the warning (from epizy.com) said the account would be deleted in 2 days time, the post-deletion notification (from infinityfree.net) was dated 4 days later.

Unfortunately, sending emails on a large scale costs money, and the subscription plain InfinityFree has only let them send X number of emails every day. If they go over the limit, the email will be sent to the next day. Because of this, service emails can sometimes be sent later than normal.

@Moongazer

It could (and, legally, probably should) be more informative as to what, specifically, is the required minimum activity.

Not really, 5 is pretty minimum, so I think the TOS covers it. While it could be more specific, 5 is pretty low.

@Moongazer

Additionally, this requirement is not really within the ability of the site owner alone to comply with.

What? You do know that you can just visit the site yourself, right? Just open the site, clear your cache (Or use a different browser), and load your site again (Repeat 5 times) every month.

@Moongazer

Another well-known provider of free web-hosting requires site owners to login to their hosting account once a month.

InfinityFree does not do that. The way InfinityFree does it is better because than if you forget, most sites will have at least 5 hits per month, keeping the site up without your interaction.

[Admin]

@Moongazer

(1) Although the warning (from epizy.com) said the account would be deleted in 2 days time, the post-deletion notification (from infinityfree.net) was dated 4 days later. I don’t know for sure when the deletion itself occurred, but if the post-deletion notification was sent on the same day as the deletion, then they may have allowed an extra two days grace before deleting the account, though even 4 days is still pretty short notice.

You should have received a suspension notice as well from us.

And the timing has changed now, so accounts are now deleted 18 days after they are suspended. I agree that 4 days was way too short.

@Moongazer

(2) The warning notice had a long link at the end, prefaced by the sentence:
“If you require this account re-activated, please click the following link”
On close inspection of the link, I found the correct account username, epiz_28412077, embedded in it, though the account name mentioned earlier in the email body and in the subject line was completely different in both format and content. That one was “account p4biohnr.epizy[dot]com”.

The “account name” is your account’s main domain. You can compare that to the Main Domain listed in your client area.

Those messages are sent by iFastNet, not by us, and I wish we could disable the iFastNet mails and send our own instead with more consistent information.

@Moongazer

Also, I now see that the warning email contains the specific answer to my question: “Your … account has received less than 5 visitors in the past 30 day period.” It’s good to know in hindsight, but it would be appropriate for this minimum requirement to be specified where it actually belongs, i.e. in the terms of service, where, as I said previously, the only mention of an activity requirement merely says, “extended periods of inactivity” as one of the reasons listed for which Infinity Free may delete an account. It could (and, legally, probably should) be more informative as to what, specifically, is the required minimum activity.

@KangJL linked to a recent reply by Admin to a similar question asked by MaxiTrauma, and even that answer was similarly vague, saying “a few hits every month.” Do we have to guess what “a few” means? If the minimum is actually 5, then why not say so clearly so that new users can be properly informed of what the minimum requirement actually is?

The exact traffic requirements and evaluation periods are regularly reconsidered, so we can clean up inactive accounts effectively while minimizing the number of false positives. If we put those in the ToS, we have to commit to it, which I don’t think is helpful.

@Moongazer

Additionally, this requirement is not really within the ability of the site owner alone to comply with. I can’t control how many people visit my site or how often they visit, so it’s not a very fair choice of criterion for activity. Another well-known provider of free web-hosting requires site owners to login to their hosting account once a month. At least that is usually within an account holder’s control.

You can just open your site yourself. That’s all in your control.

Other hosting providers may require you to login to the control panel every month. We recognize that you may not need to interact with the control panel once your site is set up, so we only look at website traffic. So if you go into your WordPress Admin to write a new post yourself, that also qualifies as activity.

[Moongazer]

Okay, thank you very much to the responders here and for the information provided. It has included some good explanations, which hopefully other newbies will also be able to learn from. Also, thanks for the tips on ways of complying with the minimum activity requirements, which I didn’t think would suffice. I assumed (wrongly as it turns out) that if the 5 hits were all from me, they would not qualify. I’ve learned from this discussion, so it’s been a good one. Thank you for these informative answers.