Free Web Hosting: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Many times small businesses wishing to gain exposure online have a limited budget. They seek out services that offer free hosting services to ease their expenses. This is usually true for companies wanting to try an online business for the first time. This type of web hosting is offered by various companies to help small business get started. The whole idea behind free web host services is simple: the web host allows for free service for a small business in order to put a website online. In order to do this the host company puts ads on the client's website so that they can get some return for the space given. This type of free service is supported entirely by the web host's advertisements and comes with some limitations.

The web hosts take advantage of the desires of small businesses wanting no cost websites to make money by utilizing the traffic from those sites. The free websites often display popup advertising, banners, or other sidebar advertisings placed there by the hosts which the client has no control over. There are even some hosts that offer these services with the provisions that the clients themselves that may appear in the control panels or other management areas of the website, or put those advertisements there hoping the clients will click them.

The free web hosts have dominated the personal web site and small business web site arena for a long time but are being replaced at a quick rate by low cost, or cheap web hosts. The cheap, or low cost hosts give all of the above advantages while not placing any ads on the client's site. They also offer dedicated domain names which is a big draw for many, and the prices are very reasonable-usually paid monthly. They offer many more services and set up features for blogs, forums, and more along with more storage and data space and bandwidth for sharing. Many free hosting companies also offer cheap services with no ads.

Free web host reliability

Since the prime objective of a web host is to make money, and a free host makes money off the ads on your website it is in their best interest to keep you up and running. There are some occasions that will cause a problem with service. Some clients report the free company for spam, or hacking and also complain about the free hosting company utilizing automatic installation of features like PHP or CGI that can cause slowdowns. All of the extra add-ons can create instability and down time. Those problems do not usually happen to large established companies, but more often with small start up web hosts.

The upside of free web hosts:

1. Free hosting websites are beneficial for students of web designing, hosting and development. They can use the free hosting services to store information about web designing, development and website maintenance in their knowledge bank. Basically a free web hosting service can be used for learning purposes. It can also be used as a testing procedure. Using these techniques, students can practically clarify their concept of websites without investing anything. For example boinc.ch offers free accounts in their server especially for those interested in UNIX environment. This free hosting service is targeted to students coupled with developers. People interested in personal homepage can also make the maximum utilization of such a free service.

2. Another valuable use for free web hosting services is to volunteer organizations, and those companies that are not-for-profit. These institutions need to share their messages with the world but often have a very limited budget. The internet is the best way to reach masses of people quickly and free web hosting allows these organizations to do that, and also get donations and other important business on a large scale from many people at once. The same services that are beneficial to students, and personal web site builders are perfect for the volunteer and service organizations as it allows them to get online quickly at no cost. Larger web hosts may provide free service to these organizations for emotional reasons, but the most likely way to obtain free space is with a free host.

3. The free services are of great benefit to community groups and others that have no income but want to share their talents with the global world. It also allows those with social and economical platforms to engage and communicate with the public without expanding on their expenses. These groups and individuals can make great use of the free web hosts by placing websites on the internet and providing links between each group, or other interested parties. They enjoy great benefits both in the SEO and cost perspective with free web hosting.

4. Free web hosts are a great idea for family websites too. Members of a family can share the special moments with the world in the form of pictures and diaries. Free web hosts have limitations on how much space is allowed to host such things but most can be done in a small amount.

Cons of free web hosting

Even though the above organizations and individuals can save a great deal of money on free web hosting there are some things to consider before opting for those services.

1. Free hosts provide subdomain and not a second-level domain contrary to the paid services.

2. Bandwidth to share pictures and data is very low on a free service provider. You will get much more with a paid service.

3. Disk space is very limited making file size and picture size uploads restricted to certain amounts on the website.

4. Your site will have many banners, pop ups, pop unders, and other distractions to visitors placed on it. This can look very unprofessional for an organization and diminish the value of the website. It also creates a negative impression to the visitor when they see all the ads and the subdomain name.

5. There is usually no guarantee of uptime.

6. Free websites often restrict certain file types such as those for music, movies, and others like zip files etc.

7. There is little to no support. Your ability to operate the site is a low priority to them. If it is offered it is usually short-term just to get you up online so they can make money.