Why avoid free web hosting?
We've all heard the cliche "You get what you pay for". The same holds true for web hosting. Sure there are some free web hosting services available, so why not use them? Here are a few reasons:
1. Required Ads:
Most free web hosting services require ads to be shown in various places on your web pages. This is typically their only source of revenue, so it is normally required in exchange for their free service.
2. Lack of Support:
Most free web hosting services cannot budget for a support staff so if your site goes down or you have questions you're out of luck.
3. Unreliable:
If you expect a decent amount of traffic to your site, you'd better make sure you have the neccessary server capacity, response time, and bandwidth speed that most web users require. Don't expect a free web host to provide this.
4. Lack of storage space:
Most free web hosts will allow you around only 10MB or so. While this may be sufficient for smaller sites, you will not have much opportunity for growth.
5. Advertising restrictions:
Some free web hosts will not allow you to sell ad space on your website.
6. Content Restriction:
Some free web hosting services have severe restrictions on what can and cannot be displayed on websites.
7. Unsupported environments:
Most good websites nowadays employ some form of dynamic scripting. Many free web hosts do not support some of the newer dynamic web technologies such as PHP, ASP, Perl, MySQL, etc... while paid web hosts will normally bend over backwards to not only support these technologies, but provide customer support for configuring and using these technologies.
8. Long, difficult to remember URLs:
Most free web hosts require your site root to only be accessible by using their domain followed by your username like the following:
http://www.freewebhosting.com/~bobsmith.
Not only is this unprofessional, but it makes it that much more difficult to remember your URL.
9. Poor Security:
Most free web hosts cannot afford to invest in a high quality maintenance / security staff and the equipment required to suffiiciently protect your website against hackers and phishers. Also, if your site accepts sensitive information such as credit card data or other personal information, don't expect a free host to provide you with a secure SSL connection as most good professional hosts would.
10. Spam:
Some free web hosts make money by spamming you with e-mail advertisements or selling your contact information to other sources.
As you can see, hosting your website with a free web host can prove to be very frustrating, if not useless.
Most professional web hosting services are near free anyways (less than $8 per month). If using your credit card over the internet is a concern, try to find one that accepts Paypal, like
HostMonster (which happens to be our top ranked web host). You can also check out our
Top 10 Web Hosting Chart .
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