{"id":2321,"date":"2008-07-29T08:40:35","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T13:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/29\/free-web-hosting-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly\/"},"modified":"2008-07-29T08:40:35","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T13:40:35","slug":"free-web-hosting-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/?p=2321","title":{"rendered":"Free Web Hosting: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Matt Hedges<\/div>\n

Many times small businesses wishing to gain exposure online have a limited budget. They seek out services that offer free hosting<\/a> services to ease their expenses. This is usually true for companies wanting to try an online business for the first time. This type of web hosting<\/a> is offered by various companies to help small business get started. The whole idea behind free web host services is simple: the web host allows for free service for a small business in order to put a website online. In order to do this the host company puts ads<\/a> on the client’s website so that they can get some return for the space given. This type of free service is supported entirely by the web host’s advertisements and comes with some limitations.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

How reliable are free web hosts?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The benefits of free web hosting<\/p>\n

1. These free websites are terrific for students, or homemakers looking to make money online in their spare time. It gives users with a very limited budget a platform for their views, as well as products and services. These sites can be used to store data or other information thereby making it a great learning resource for students. Some people use the free websites for testing purposes. When doing that a user can test the website concept to see if it will work on a larger scale for their purposes before investing large amounts of money. As an example boinc.ch gives free space to users in order to test its UNIX applications. Most free websites are aimed at students along with developers, and people interested in creating a personal website.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The cons of free web hosts<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

1. Regardless of what they claim free hosts offer subdomain services not second-level domain.<\/p>\n

2. Bandwidth on free services is extremely low and subject to downtimes unlike the paid services.<\/p>\n

3. Since the free space provided is generally low, any file size cannot be uploaded freely in the website.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

5. The clients are generally not provided any type of uptime guarantee<\/p>\n

6. Free websites often restrict certain file types such as those for music, movies, and others like zip files etc.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n
About the Author:<\/div>\n
This article is published with permission from http:\/\/www.webhostingmadness.com, a publisher of hosting company ratings<\/a>, articles and helpful guides on the web hosting industry.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many times small businesses wishing to gain exposure online have a limited budget. They seek out services that offer free hosting services to ease their expenses. This is usually true for companies wanting to try an online business for the first time. This type of web hosting is offered by various companies to help small business get started. The whole idea behind free web host services is simple: the web host allows for free service for a small business in order to put a website online. In order to do this the host company puts ads on the client’s website so that they can get some return for the space given. This type of free service is supported entirely by the web host’s advertisements and comes with some limitations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":791,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-web","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/791"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}