Sunday, July 27, 2008

Free Web Hosting Pros and Cons

By Matt Hedges

Free webhosting exists solely to allow small business and those who desire personal websites to get online with no cost so they can provide their service, or personal point of view to the world. This has become such a great issue over the last few years that companies are now providing this service to clients in order to allow them access to the web like never before. The idea behind free web hosting is simple. You get the space and tools you need to build a website for free. In exchange the web host company gets to place advertisements on your website to make use of your traffic to gain their fees back. These web hosts are completely financed by their advertisements and also have some limitations you should be aware of.

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.

With the advent of several cheap hosting services the requirements for free web hosting is diminishing at a faster rate. People are now able to access shared and dedicated web hosting services at a much lesser rate that is also hosting their sites faster. However, the emergence of blog has boosted the growth of free hosting services. Since blogs are easy to set up and manage, people often feel that they can opt for such an easy going service rather that hiring and spending on companies for website hosting. With Free web hosting services companies are trying to impart the benefits of individual websites that has several other advantages over blogs.

Free web host reliability

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 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 very valuable use for free hosting services is for voluntary services or organizations and not-for-profit institutions who need to display their message without high costs. This way these organizations can reach millions across the globe without spending money from their tight budget. These volunteer organizations usually have no money but a great need for communications and the free website gives them the ultimate platform for expression and the benefits of acceting donations from all around the world with no hosting costs incurred. By using the free web host services these organizations can create websites that range from a single page to as many as ten pages and broadcast their activities and methods to the public.

3. Another great use of the free web host service is for groups and communities who need to share their information between each other. They can share their ideals, and feelings on many issues great and small for free. The free web hosts are great for groups with limited financial resources but a lot to share with the world, and other like-minded communities. They can share data and mutual links to their websites and allow more people to find them through these services. From a purely SEO standpoint these free services offer great benefits to this type of organization.

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

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. Regardless of what they claim free hosts offer subdomain services not second-level domain.

2. The bandwidth offered by the free web hosting service provider is reasonably very low and is hardly comparable to paid hosting services.

3. Since the free space provided is generally low, any file size cannot be uploaded freely in the website.

4. The greatest disadvantage most people find with free websites are the banners and other ad like pop ups and pop unders that are placed all over their websites. It takes away perceived value when visitors click on their site and gives off a negative feeling on the usefulness of the company. Some of the ads can be compulsory in nature.

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 generally no, or very little technical support for customers of the free web hosts since it is not their priority. At most they may offer a month or two of support.

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