Can Free Web Hosting Work for Your Site?
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.
When you post anything on social sites like Facebook, you are in essence creating a web page that is all about you, but subject to the rules and regulations of the site. If they decide one day they don’t like what you have posted, or make a major change to the site guidelines, your work can go right down the drain. Owning and posting to your own site avoids this.
If you decide that getting your own domain name and publishing your own website is what you want to do, you’ll have a variety of hosting choices, including options for free hosting and paid hosting. The paid hosting is really a great deal now, because many hosts are offering packages sufficient for most users at rates under $12 a month. Some are as low as $5 per month.
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.
Free hosting setups almost always require ads on your site. These are set by the host, and while they won’t necessarily be right in the middle of your page, they will definitely be a distraction to your otherwise nice work.
It isn’t unusual for pop ups to be a problem on free sites. Pop up blockers don’t get them all, and they can be a nuisance to your site visitors.
There will be file transfer limits, so you won’t be able to feature much video or other multimedia attractions.
A website hosted with a free provider will not be your own domain name. You will pick a name, which will be attached to the host’s name, for example: yoursitename.freehost.com or something similar. You won’t be able have your own unique domain.
A lot of fly by night operations tend to get into the business of hosting free web sites. They do this because the idea of getting money from all the ads is appealing. It’s easy enough for someone to get a reseller account with a major hosting provider and set up a hosting service. Problem is, if it doesn’t make money, they can be out of business and gone overnight.
My advice is to avoid all free web hosting services, unless you simply don’t have the money or don’t want to commit to a few dollars a month for a regular host. The bottom line is, never put anything up on a free host that you really don’t want to lose. It is definitely a risk.
Getting your own website up and running is exciting. When choosing a web hosting provider, you have many different options. Find out if free web hosting is a worthwhile option for you to consider.
