Web Hosting Information

Free Web Hosting - Why Might It Be A Bad Idea


When talking about free anything the legitimate question that first pops into your mind is why pay when you can get it free?

And as for free web hosting there are plenty of places to get it from.

As spread as they are, if you are not a stranger to the whole Internet experience, you might even have a web site hosted for free. Are you satisfied with your provider? Is it everything you wanted? Probably not. Anyway it is true that is comes with no cost and no other aggravations? or are there any?

Free web hosting cost no money but what can you expect from one?

Your web site will be turned into an advertising machine that works for the free web host. Expect, banners, pop up windows, frames. They will all mess the look of your web site in terms of design and accessibility for your visitors that might be literally flooded with popups almost after every click-through.

You can't make advertising revenue of your web site, as most free web hosts don't allow it. This is not such a big issue when you are maintaining a personal web site, but the cutting-off advertising revenues can mean significant losses for a business. For this last case, only a paid web hosting solution might be the right answer.

Very little space for your web pages. With free web hosting provider offering 5 to 15 MB of disk space, your site's expansion will severely restricted. Growing your web site above the offered quota would result in transferring to a paid plan offered by the same hosting provider or finding a different paid web-hosting provider. In both cases you end paying for your hosting and you might loose traffic to your web site due to changing hosts.

No online store can go without secure server to enable secure online credit card processing. The great majority of free hosts don't support secure web servers. Customers fearing fraud and concerned about their personal information will make it impossible, at least very hard for an online store to survive on a free host. And anyway, have you ever heard of a successful online store hosted by a free web host? None will hear from yours either.

The uptime of your web site will be like the weather forecast. Hope for good, but prepare for the worse. Downtime through free web hosts is unfortunately very common. As web hosts generate their revenues from advertising, they don't feel very much compelled to care for the web site of a subscriber who doesn't pay them anyway.

To whom will you turn when experiencing the abovementioned downtime or other technical problem with your web site? Free web hosts usually have a limited budget and don't afford to hire large customer support teams, if any. You will find yourself alone, staring at the FAQ page.

Your domain name will be measured in feet and will tell nothing or very little of your business. This obviously results in low traffic scores, as your visitors won't be able to remember your URL. Can you rely only on search engines, linked sites and people bookmarking your web site? If yes, at least consider the fact that in the age when companies try to create a personalized image, your web site will be condemned to be just another subdomain of your free host.

Will your customers trust a business hosted by a free web host? What credibility will your web site inspire? Not a very high one.

The above list is really rather long, but as surprisingly as it might be, it is far from being complete. Other additions to it could be that free web hosts not always offer FTP access to your web site file, or you only have one e-mail address to work with and probably looks like mysite@anotherfreeserver.com.

Yes, paid web hosting requires money, but the prices are lower than they used to be, and the advantages are rather impressive. Just turn all the above you can't? or you have to do without? list around.

You are searching for a solution to host your business or even a professional personal web site, don't look for it at a free web host.

About The Author

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the "About" and "weblinks" are kept intact.


MORE RESOURCES:

Leading Web-Hosting Company Unveils Plans to Help Fight Unemployment
PR Web (press release)
Advanced Internet Technologies (AIT), a leading web-hosting company since 1996, has long taken a different approach to the market versus their competitors. “Most web-hosting companies market towards and develop products for the customer that wants to ...



Arvixe Wins Top Spot in the 2011 Readers' Choice Awards
MarketWatch (press release)
SANTA ROSA, CA, Feb 07, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Arvixe, a leader in Web hosting solutions for businesses and individuals, is proud to announce and thrilled to receive HostReview's 2011 Readers' Choice Award for the #1 user-ranked web hosting ...

and more »


NaviSite Named #1 Best Managed Hosting Service for Third Year in a Row by ...
MarketWatch (press release)
HostReview's 6th Annual Web Hosting Awards are a global recognition of innovators and market leaders, set up to reward outstanding contributions within the web hosting industry. Commenced in 2006, the HostReview Annual Awards have grown to be one of ...

and more »


TCWH Announces Best WordPress Hosting 2012
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
The leading web hosting review site Top-Cheap-Web-Hosting.com announces that WebHostingHub is the award winner for Best WordPress Hosting 2012, which is rated based on the WordPress loading speed; WordPress templates, themes and plugins; reliability; ...

and more »


Host Color Announced CDN Web Hosting With One Month Trial On NetDNA CDN
HostReview.com (press release)
South Bend, Indiana, February 04, 2012 -- HostColor.com, a global provider of quality web hosting services that operates from data centers in United States and Europe has made available NetDNA global content delivery network (CDN) to all customers.

and more »


Canadian Web Hosting Unveils New Website
PR Web (press release)
Canadian Web Hosting's new website highlights new cloud hosting offerings and expanded CA Cloud Infrastructure. We wanted to make it easier than ever to get the services and solutions our Canadian business customers need.

and more »


Cogitate's Backup Services Incorporate Online Tech's Colocation Web Hosting
The Complete Managed Services Resource
Recently, Online Tech announced it will provide colocation Web hosting for backup provider, Cogitate, Inc. What companies must keep in mind is that data loss and disasters occur more often than is generally realized, from simple application and ...



Understanding Web Host Plans: 7 Terms to Know
PCWorld
By Christopher Null, PCWorld If you're new to Web hosting, the bevy of plans available from many providers may confuse you. Here's a quick primer on what's what in the world of Web hosting. Shared hosting: In this arrangement, a single Web server box ...

and more »


Hosting Provider Webzilla to Receive PCI DSS Data Security Standard
MyHostNews.com (press release)
By editor Web Hosting News – Aventura, FL – Webzilla is proud to announce they have received the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) data security standard. Webzilla has successfully undergone an audit and received version 1.2.1 ...

and more »


Backup Provider Cogitate Selects Online Tech's Colocation Web Hosting
Tophosts
Data center operator Online Tech will provide co-location Web hosting for Cogitate's online backup services. Cogitate's launch of its 9G BACKUP solution prompted the search for a cost-effective data center. George Loescher, President of Cogitate, ...
Cogitate Selects Online Tech's SOC 2 Compliant Michigan ColocationMyHostNews.com (press release)

all 2 news articles »

Google News

home | site map
© 2006