Building your own website requires a lot of decision making. Determining color and copy can be fun, but shopping around for a web host, not so much. You probably have run into some web hosts that offer free hosting , but what does “free” really mean? Buying a domain for 5 years and getting free hosting for a year is a nice promotional offer. On the other hand, if you are considering signing up for free hosting with no other purchase, proceed with caution. Take into consideration these details that might show up in the fine print.
Ads
Web hosts need to compensate for free hosting. One way they can do this is by requiring your website to have banners and pop ups advertising their site. These graphics are intrusive to visitors and can damage a new site’s reputation. Visitors don’t know or trust your brand, so this will only serve as a bad first impression.
Customer Service
Free web hosts have no obligation to you or your business. They are giving you something for free; they don’t care what happens to your site! You will end up forfeiting services like: talking with a representative over the phone (if they even have any), site backups, and speedy repair time.
Reliability
Having a reliable website can make or break your business’ web presence. If your site is constantly down, you can say bon voyage to visitors coming back. Let’s not ignore our robot friend’s opinion either. If search engine bots encounter the same problems they will rate it lower on their search engine rank.
Space
Free hosting translates into getting a tiny amount of space on a
server. This won’t be a problem when first starting out; but once you have more traffic, content and media, get ready for problems. Space is such an issue for free web hosts that many of them will delete you off their servers if you don’t log in enough.
Customization
If you have plans to have a website with an e-commerce shopping cart on a free host server, think again. Free hosting services are able to be free because they are so basic. They don’t allow users to add extra features, plugins and offer little customization.
You may also end up with a domain that is created for you. It will most likely be long, hard to remember, and not SEO friendly. And you can pretty much forget about having a customized email address with your website’s URL.
Long Story Short
Free hosting is great for personal websites. Want a blog to post pictures and update your friends on what’s going on in your life? Great! But if you are looking to increase business through an online marketing tool like a website, disregard free hosting. There are plenty of other reliable and affordable hosting options. All I can say is survey your options and make an educated final decision. If you don’t your online presence could suffer.
