Free Web Hosting: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Small businesses that wish to feature their services in internet often seek free and low priced web hosting services. This statement is generally true for companies who want to feature new websites. Free web hosting services offered by several hosting companies match the requirements of such businesses. The concept of free web hosting is based on a simple idea: a web host would provide free server space for hosting a small or medium business website. In return of this service the hosting companies would display advertisements on the client’s site and consequently earn from it. The free web hosting service is completely supported by advertisements but has its own limitations.
The free website hosts are making money with the application of such services as client’s can be easily lured by such a zero-price offer. These web hosts display popup, put banners, or advertisements on WebPages of the client’s website thus earning enough from free web hosting. There are several web hosting companies that provide free services to their clients against the condition that clients would click on banners that are their in their control panel or simply display banners in file manager with the expectations that client’s will click on them.
The search for free hosting services has lessened over time with the development of many companies providing low cost web hosting with greater flexibility and no ads. Since these services offer great savings over most high cost web hosting plans with much more options and capabilities than free space business are now choosing these over free plans. The newest marketing and social crazy, blogging began to give free services a boon. As those blogs became easier to set up and use, however, that too is taking a backseat to the ability to blog on a cheap site without the additional technical help that used to be required.
How reliable are free web hosts?
While they make money off of the advertisements on the client’s sites which gives them incentive to stay in business, many free web hosts have stability issues. It occasionally turns out that someone or another company will declare their web host service complaining of spam, or hacking. That can occur if the host company automatically installs utilities like CGI, or PHP. These things reduce the performance of the server drastically. Professional web hosts are rarely affected by such things. However, it would be a good idea to beware of the startup web host as they are more apt to be subjected to downtime and crashes on account of these things.
The benefits of free web hosting
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. There are a large number of groups or communities who are eager to share their ideas and feeling on various big and small issues. Free websites can be helpful for such groups who don’t have enough money to invest on a shared or dedicated server. They can utilize the free service by posting useful information and also providing mutual links to their respective websites. This increases their search engine visibility and improves their rankings. Therefore both from SEO and financial perspective they are enjoying the benefit of free web hosting services.
4. Family websites can make great use of the free web hosting services too. They allow families to share information between each other and also with the world. Pictures, and other vital data can be shared in an almost diary form online where others can read and enjoy the experiences. Be sure to check for a web hosts authenticity before embarking on any program that shares your information online.
The cons of free web hosts
Though webs hosting services are best from monetary aspect, there are several disadvantages which compel the users to think twice before going for such a service.
1. The free host does not provide domain, or even second-level domain names. You will be allocated a subdomain which can be less impressive to viewers.
2. The bandwidth offered by the free web hosting service provider is reasonably very low and is hardly comparable to paid hosting services.
3. Free space is also very low meaning you have very limited disk space on the server for holding your files and data.
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. The clients are generally not provided any type of uptime guarantee
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.
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