Even though everyone likes to get something for nothing, the truth is that when it comes to your web host, choosing the best host possible is important if you want your new online business or website to succeed. Web hosts provides you with the online space needed to upload your website, so choosing a host you can't rely on isn't worth it.
Unfortunately, most free web hosts are just that unreliable. Because free hosts can shut down in a moments notice, your site will become inaccessible and you will have to transfer your domain name to another host in order to get back online.
What is Free Web Hosting? Free web hosting is free, sort of. To stay in business, free web hosts offer advertising space to businesses and others for a fee. As a result, when you sign up to receive space for your web site, you will have no control over the types of ads that will appear on your site. This can be very distracting to visitors and could damage your reputation as a legitimate business owner.
The biggest problem when it comes to using free web hosting services is that if the host doesn't earn enough revenue selling ad space, it may shut down. This can happen at any time, so it's important when choosing a free web host to find one that is profitable.
Domain Names When you sign up to receive free web hosting services, your domain name will look something like this: www.thisismybusinessfreewebhost.com/myweb79864589. If you're trying to start a business, visitors may be turned off by your URL. This is because they know you're not paying for web hosting and may wonder if you cut corners anywhere else as well. While the Internet can be a wonderful place to buy and sell goods and services, consumers must be wary about identity theft, scams and other Internet crimes. A URL that's connected to a free web host can signify to customers that you're business is not legitimate.
Limited Storage Space For those starting an Internet business, finding a web host that provides enough storage space for large media files, shopping cart software and other items is important. Most free web hosts simply do not provide enough storage space.
Creating Personal Websites By now, you should realize that free web host services are not the best choice for business use. But if you want to test your website to see how it looks online or you want to create a personal website, free web hosts are suitable. Even though you will have to accept the ads that will be placed on the site, if you just want to create a blog or share photos with family or friends, then a free web host is a cost effective alternative to paying monthly fees for additional space and features you may not use anyway.
In the end, when it comes to using a free web host, understanding your needs and weighing your options are best. For those starting a small business, opt for standard hosting services for the added security and features that can help you succeed.
The rise of free web hosting services in recent years proves that there is without doubt huge demand for no cost hosting and there has been no shortage of companies and marketers keen to tap into what is seen as such a lucrative market.
The first companies offering free hosting were able to do so by using advertising revenues to offset their costs and usually, to turn free hosting into a profitable venture for themselves.
For you, the consumer, such a tempting offer was hard to resist. The reality of building a site on a free hosting account however, often turned into a rather frustrating and sometimes worthless end user experience.
The early pioneers were often hastily set up and after they had raked in the money, users often found themselves high and dry when the free hosting provider went offline overnight, never to return. The fact that users were not out of pocket may have cushioned the blow, but all the work customers had done was invariably lost, along with the time invested.
For those who signed up with a more stable free hosting company, the downside was usually the ads that they were forced to run on their websites, over which they had no control. These were usually not remotely relevant to the content of the site, and usually so intrusive that visitors would be scared away pretty quickly.
Add to this the fact that free web hosting users were usually stuck with a subdomain name and found it almost impossible to achieve any kind of worthwhile results in the search engines results pages, and free web page hosting started to look far less appealing.
Many free web hosting services also left a lot to be desired in the reliability stakes with sites often being offline and unavailable to internet users. This was annoying for many, but to anyone trying to run some kind of online business it was disastrous.
Because of all these things, you will doubtless have read in many places that free hosting is really not worth the price you pay, particularly if your site has any commercial aspirations.
I would not disagree with this even today, because anyone operating a business online usually needs far more than most free web hosting plans can offer. However, the choices in 2008 are far greater than they have been in the past.
Several free hosting providers now offer PHP and MySQL and some pretty decent storage and bandwidth numbers. There are even services that give cPanel access and the ability to host your own domain name.
For many people, particularly those on a very tight budget, perhaps free hosting is still worth a look. If you are just looking to host a non commercial website, or perhaps just a place to host marketing squeeze pages and the like, free hosting might well be a viable choice.
As with most things, if you get them for free, there is usually a trade off, but the free web hosting industry has certainly improved in recent times and consumer choices are more wide ranging than they once were.
Both David O Connell & Cayman Host are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.