As with everything in life all the choices we make have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The problem is that we don't often see the disadvantages until after we have made our decision. This can also happen when we choose a web hosting provider. There are many web hosts that provide free hosting. Why pay for something you can get free? Free is great for hosting personal sites.

Free web hosting sounds attractive. How does a free web hosting provider get any money? They are a business so they are there to make money. They do this by advertising. You see you get a free site. You then drive traffic to the site. This traffic now become potential customers of your web hosting provider. So your web host has given you a free site in return for free traffic.

If all you need is a site where you can display personal or family thing even photos a free site will be all you require. If on the other hand you want to use it to promote an internet business a free site could be a hindrance.

Internet marketing is about driving traffic to your site, gaining their trust and having a laser focused squeeze page. Free web hosting fails here. You can lose the focus on your squeeze page because of the ads that your free web hosting provider has placed on your page. You also need to come across as a professional marketer that can be trusted. Free web hosting will give you the appearance of an amateur. In the end your free site could be costing you sales.

If you are promoting a product you will always be better off with a paid site. You will need to choose the hosting package that will suit your needs. Some of the benefits of a paid site are:

1.Can create a number of email accounts. This means that your email address will look more professional. Your email will look like this yourname@yoursite.com that will look a lot more professional than yourname@yahoo.com or any of the free email sites. I personally won't do business with anyone who uses a free email account as their support address; I feel it's too risky.

2.You can set up PHP and CGI scripts.

3.You will have access to MySql databases. Most scripts today require a database. You may wish to use a blog script such as Wordpress. With a paid web hosting account you will be able to.

4.You will have greater resources available such as plenty of disk space.

5.You will have the use of an easy to use control panel. This will also give you greater control over your site.

There are many reasons to choose a paid web host provider. These are just a few.

You can start out small and grow. Your web hosting provider should be able to increase the limits to your account painlessly. So when the package you chose first becomes too restrictive you can get the limits increased. By this time you will already be making an income.

In summary: a free web site host is good for non commercial sites such as family or personal sites. If you want to sell anything on line you will be far better of paying for your web hosting provider.