If you are a newcomer in the land of the WWW or World Wide Web, you definitely must be wondering about many aspects of the functioning of the web and what are the best possible ways to project your website or domain on the Internet. The best bet for starters, of course, if ‘free web hosting’.
Free web hosting is good, if you are new and want to learn the ropes first hand. It is definitely not a good idea if you are starting a dot.com business. So, what do you get with a free web hosting provider?
First of all you will get a web space on the net FREE OF COST. This is quite a big plus point. Another plus point is that it will provide you with a free email account in most cases. The downside would be that you will not have the permission to have your domain name. You cannot get any technical support for your database, nor can you accept advertisements.
Hence, if you are hosting your web just to post out a few ideas, a hobby broadcast site, or similar things, and then definitely you can choose a free web-hosting provider. Free web hosting is good for those with low traffic. For example you may like to have your website so your friends and family can access and exchange ideas with you. Or just plain curious to see how things work out when you are out there, posting on the Internet.
It is definitely not advisable for a person who wants to run or launch a business on the net, however rosy the free web-hosting provider would paint it. No free web-hosting provider will offer you free traffic transfer space and hence your business will be doomed, or you will end up with huge traffic transfer charges. So also, you would loose out in terms of visitors if and when the server is not up to the mark and has an uptime less than 95%. Poor technical support would be another major obstacle if you have heavy traffic to your website, as any interruption would frustrate your visitors chasing them away from your website.
Besides, the point that would decide anyone who runs a web-based business NOT to choose a free web hosting, is that the company would look cheap and amateurish. The host of your free website will impose advertisements on your website, which you may not like. There are a lot of downside points. A few are enumerated below:
•No tech support •No guarantee on server uptime •No free traffic transfer space •No access to cgi and/or perl script •No advertisement for money can be hosted on your free website •No sub-directories •No secure server for credit card payments •Very low SEO visibility as search engines bypass free sites often
Having gone through the above, I still reiterate that for beginners who want to see what it looks like to be on the web, for those who want to share things with family and friends, and for hobby purposes, free web hosting is a good option. For any other reason, by all means go for a professional web hosting service.
Michael S. Lee is the webmaster of http://www.CompareWebHostings.com, A guide on hosting web sites such as what to choose, how to choose and where to buy.
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