The Good and Bad of Free Web Hosting Plans

Saturday, November 21, 2009 19:00
Posted in category Blogging

Do you think that free web hosting might work okay for you? Many people these days have a passion or interest they want to express, and going online with a web site is a great way to do it. Never before have we had the ability to reach the world so quickly and easily. While you can use any of the free social media sites to do this (such as My Space), getting your own domain and hosting is often a better option.

On the social sites, whatever content you submit is theirs. If the site decides some day to change the rules, or go offline altogether, all of your effort can be wasted. It is so much better when you own your own domain and have your own hosting. If you own your site, your content is yours and you own it (except for copyrighted material, of course).

If you choose to register a domain and create your own site, you have a choice between traditional paid web hosting and free web hosting. Paid hosting is a bargain these days, with many hosts charging $10 for less a month for just about everything you need. Most hosting plans in this price range include enough disk space to host several different websites, or one big site, depending on how much content you create over time.

Even with pay by the month hosting being so cheap, some folks still like the idea of free web hosting. If your site is small, strictly for fun, and you wouldn’t mind if it went away suddenly then free hosting might be okay for you. If your intention is to promote any business or sell anything, free hosting isn’t a good idea.

The positive side of free web hosting is the “free”. However, there are drawbacks.

In most cases, the hosting provider reserves the right to run ads on your site, usually on the top or side margins. This won’t disturb your content, but can make viewing it annoying to others, and make your pretty design and setup look pretty lousy.

Visitors to your site will also be treated to pop ups and pop unders, which are additional advertisements that the free web host places there.

Free hosting is for small sites that don’t get a lot of traffic, and don’t use a lot of video or file transfers. Don’t plan on having more than a small, simple site with these hosts.

Your website address will the hosting companies name plus something you create, for example “petejohnson.freewebhostingcompany.com” – not exactly a personalized or glowing expression of you or the impression you want to make on the world.

Remember that free hosts are counting on making money from the ads on your site. They hope you’ll bring in traffic that will click the ads and buy something. They then make money from the click, or from the sale. It’s a great deal. Problem is, if it doesn’t go well, the host can shut down at anytime and all your work and effort is gone forever.

Unless you are just totally broke or don’t care if your site is full of ads, I suggest that you avoid free web hosting completely. Good quality hosting is so affordable now, and you have complete control over your domain and content with it. Go with free hosting if you must, but understand the pros and cons.

Getting your own website up and running is exciting. When choosing a web host, you have quite a lot of often confusing options. Find out if free web hosting is a worthwhile option for you to consider.

categories: free web hosting,web hosts,web hosting,domain hosting,website,internet marketing,blog,internet,web

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply