Free Web Hosting: Blessing Or Curse?
When looking for a bargain, many people who are planning web sites check out free web hosting sites such as Angelfire or Geocities; however, you should remember that nothing is ever truly free. Your free web hosting provider has expenses they must pay for, and they have to turn a profit; as a result, you may wind up with things happening to your web site you don’t like. Unwanted Content (Advertising and Pop-Ups)] The best way to make money on the web today is through advertising, and free web hosts are fully aware of this. Many free web hosting providers started their businesses because the web sites they host provide free content that they can then run advertising on. If you’re using your web site as a place to run a free ezine, or your family is your main web site customer, that’s probably fine. But if you’re trying to sell anything online, your customer does not want to be interrupted by pop-ups, or deal with slow downloads of your page caused by advertising downloads they don’t want to see. Besides which, those unwanted advertisements may be driving customers to your competitors. If you look at your web site and think the ads you view are okay, think again; most free web hosting providers rotate ads on web sites depending on what they have available and your hit ratio. If you go to your gardening store web site and see an advertisement for a feng shui service, don’t be complacent – hit reload. The advertisement displayed will probably change, and it may be a competitor showing up next. Frequently, free web hosting providers will allow you to choose certain types of advertising that you don’t want displayed on your site; but even then, you need to double-check. And while you’re checking, consider that your customer has to sit through the download of your web site. Reliability, File Space, and Bandwidth Which brings me to bandwidth. In addition to running ads that download simultaneously or even before your web site, your free web host also has to restrict bandwidth. This means slower downloads. You also don’t have as much file space to store your site on, which means you may not be able to put the entire site you designed up on the web. Reliability of access to your web site may not be perfect; you may get customer complaints that they can’t see your web site when they go to the address you provide. Restrictions on Your Content and Information And you may not be able to run the types of content you want on a free web host. For example, there are web hosts that do not allow adult content; there are others that don’t allow or that charge for commercial web sites. If you’re making money from your web site, you need to check into those restrictions. And you may not be able to get access to the web logs that contain information you need to improve your web site. Web servers maintain records of hits and downloads on web sites that can tell you things like where your web site viewers are physically located; how many hits you received; how many downloads you received (and if these ratios aren’t close to 1:1, it means your customers are clicking on your site, but giving up prior to full download of your page); and where they are being referred from. Free web service providers may track that information, but have found that it isn’t cost-effective to provide for you, the web site owner. Besides Which You may have free web space from your regular ISP. It’s standard today to include, along with web access, a number of email boxes and some web space to ISP customers.