Can Free Web Hosting Work for Your Site?
What is the difference between shared (paid) web hosting and free web hosting? This is an important question for those who are interested in setting up web sites. Whether just for blogging or promoting a cause, or trying to make money with a business, the type of hosting you choose can make a big difference in your site and the reaction of your visitors. Just setting up shop on a free social site like Facebook isn’t always a great idea.
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).
With the price of paid hosting down to reasonable levels, it makes sense now to consider it. You can register a domain for under $10 a year, and set up paid hosting for about the same amount per month. These paid packages have plenty of disk space and bandwidth allowance for most average webmasters, usually with room for multiple sites if you’re inclined to create them.
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.
Looking at the bright side, free web hosting doesn’t cost a dime and there is no commitment. It isn’t all wonderful, though, because somebody somewhere has to pay for it.
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.
Other forms of advertising are often used, including popups and other types of advertising that greet your visitors upon entering and leaving your site. These are perhaps more annoying than anything.
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.
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.
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.
My bottom line suggestion is to avoid free web hosting altogether. Paid hosting is very inexpensive now, and the features and control you have over your site are more than worth the small monthly fee. If you have nothing to lose, free hosting is okay, just know the downside of going that route.
Publishing your own web site is a great thing to do!. When trying to decide on a web host, you have many different options. Find out if free web hosting is a plan that will meet your needs. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory