In this day and age, it is almost unthinkable: that a whopping 40 percent of mid-size and small businesses don’t have a website yet. Further, 53 percent did not even know the costs of setting up with a typical web hosting service. Since 1and1 hosting is the largest web hosting company, it makes sense to fund such a study, aimed at increasing business owner awareness of web hosting services, thus driving up web hosting sales (of which 1&1 hosting has the largest market share).

Oliver Mauss, CEO of 1&1 Internet Inc. proclaimed:

“While many small companies today leverage the Web with increasing proficiency, too many businesses remain excluded from the online world. Although an online presence becomes more and more important for the acquisition of new customers, small business owners are still unaware of the true cost of Web hosting. They overestimate the necessary business investments for being online and underestimate how simple and affordable it is to source a website.”

1&1 webhosting further went on to claim that 83 percent of those who did in fact have a “online presence” said it was a vital part of their success. 1and1 hosting further claims that the biggest factor keeping small business owners from going online was that they assumed web hosting was expensive, with the average guess being $67 a month. Considering 1and1 webhosting offers services as low as $4 a month (which comes with a free domain), that’s an important issue for the hosting company.

This press release will comes as a big marketing point for the web hosting industry, but especially 1and1 hosting, who stands to benefit most from educating the common small business owner that owning a website can be easy and inexpensive.