If you’ve started a website the first thing you’ll need is web hosting. There are two main types of hosting available free and paid. Here are 5 things you should know before signing up to free hosting.
1. Do you like Sharing?
How about with thousands and thousands of other sites? With free hosting the ability to offer these servers for free comes from sharing the server amongst thousands of other sites. Not as bad as it sounds? Well if even one of those sites has a bug or unexpected crash then chances are your site will be affected, potentially causing your site to be down until the problem is fixed – this can take hours.
2. Support? What support?
With almost all free hosting there is none, zip, zilch, zero support. If you get stuck, your site crashes unexpectantly or you need help with updates then you’re on your own. As a free service, support is not included.
3. Limited Resources
With free hosting you’re capped on how much storage and memory you can access. The amounts given to free hosted clients is minimal and will barely support even a basic website, with a few webpages.
4. Google will Ignore you
What’s the point of setting up your fantastic website, with amazing content if it goes unseen. Google doesn’t particularly like free web hosting and will rank pages with paid web hosting much higher than free-hosted pages.
5. I hope you like Pop-up ads
Free hosting companies will normally make up the cost of providing the service for free by spamming your page with pop-ups and banner ads, they get paid every time someone clicks on the ad while your visitors get increasingly frustrated with these nuisances popping up all over their screen.
Free isn’t always cheap, although you may be saving a few bucks, the costs associated far outweigh any savings. Your website in most cases, is the face of your business and brand, don’t ruin your reputation and your customers’ experiences by going with a free web host. At the end of the day you get what you pay for, and when you pay nothing, well… you really do get nothing in return.
