Archive for September 2011
Free web hosting abound on the web, with literally hundreds of services vying for our attention. The question is: Should you partake as a small business owner? Well, there are several things to consider if you are considering a free web hosting site. The following list is just some of them: Most services make money by placing banners or other ads on YOUR site, which can draw potential customers from you.
Many sites, limit their features (such as bandwidth) in hopes of selling you their upgrade web hosting packages. If you anticipate your site growing, a deal does not seem to make sense because you will have eventually outgrow its limited features and have to move anyway, which could be a real hassle. Better to just start with an affordable shared web hosting package. Some providers provide only sub-domains instead of your own domain. For example: freesite.yourdomain.com instead of just yourdomain.com. You can imagine the negative impact this would have on your business.
Overall, these are just some of the reasons why you may wish to consider paying for an inexpensive but reliable one that will not limit or detract from your online business. One last word regarding free web hosting. There are definitely some instances where a person may benefit from free web hosting. One such circumstance may be when a person is new to the idea of web site building and design, and wants to simply get their feet wet. In this sense, a site may be just the thing to help them with the learning curve of putting a web site on the web.
There is a way to build you very own website without spending a dime. To do that, you can opt for free web hosting. However, it has many limitations. Although you can get your website online, it will only be a presence with no depth. Often, these providers requires their name to be named in your domain. On the other hand, there are good free providers out there that has fewer limitations that allow you to exploit more on your website design. We just need to find out which one is the better web hosting provider.
The limitations with a free web hosting are the space, bandwidth each month and no linking for files. They also post all sort of advertisement onto website. Worst off all, there is no guarantee about the uptime of your website. Some free web hosting does provide control panel with FTP for you to transfer files as well as the use of scripting languages. Other may also provide guestbook feature to your website.
For those free web hosting that allows instant activation, it usually provides very little storage space. You will also have limited bandwidth and many other limitations. There is also the possibility of being spammed. So the better choice is to go for a approved activation which need validation to confirm your hosting. With this approved activation, you will get more storage space, bandwidth. The validation process will mean you’re your website will not be spammed.
If you are looking to have a forum- like website, free web hosting companies will usually require you to have a certain amount of posting before they offer you the free web hosting. This is like a point-based hosting. Every post that is posted, you gain one point which can be use for you to get your free web hosting.
Free web hosting does not allow much image on your website because they will use that space to place advertisement. This is somewhat frustrating because there is a limit to what you want to show on your website. However, being the fact that it is a free web hosting, we can’t really expect it to perform for us like a paid hosting. Therefore, it is all in our choice. To go for a free web hosting or to find a proper paid hosting for our website.
Is FREE web hosting really free? What are some of the clauses that are attached to it?
1. Service may offer crappy servers which have very poor uptime.
2. Ads may be served on your page.
3. Share a percentage of money earned from your website.
4. Its totally free!
It is still technically possible to get absolutely free hosting, some strings attached. The servers are really crappy, and your websites are likely to be down for a few hours everyday. Almost all of these free web hosting sites that you will encounter, offer no interface or a poor interface with extremely limited features. There is no support team what so ever and there is nothing much that can be done, when your website goes down. Anyway, there is never a chance to complain, since the service is offered for free. It is a good idea to google for the company name, check for their alexa ratings and similar metrics before you decide to stick with free webhosting.
WordPress:
The next best thing of getting a free website are the industry leaders WordPress and blogger. While WordPress is totally free, you may rarely see ads served on your page. Also, there are a few restrictions that are tagged along with WordPress. For instance, you cannot write sponsored content on your webpage. While sub-domains are free, you cannot use your own domain for free(Pointing your own domain is a premium feature and costs $15 per year). Even with all these clauses, WordPress.com is still the leading blogging platform for its awesome features.
Blogger:
The next best thing is google’s blogger. While blogger has been around for even longer time than WordPress, it is not cutting edge technology. The website builder has seen some changes recently, but it is not extremely flexible. You have the option of using CSS to create custom themes, but this demands some technical expertise. The interface is not so intuitive, the plugins are so very limited. For instance, it is so easy to add social bookmarks and seo plugins in a click with WordPress. The number of theme options in blogger has been on the rise and has become a substantial collection. The good news though is Blogger offers complete free webhosting, no strings attached. There are no ads served on your page and you get to voice your own opinion, no matter what, which is not the case with WordPress.
Devhub:
Devhub is a free website builder where you get free web hosting. The service offers unlimited free subdomains and also you can use your existing top levels domains for free. The website builder is truly cutting edge, offers drag and drop features with tons of modules. The sweet part of devhub is that these modules can help you make money, and you can add, remove, edit, move around modules in a matter of seconds. However, you get to share the revenue made from these modules with devhub. This is a great option for many people who lack technical expertise to build websites and also do not wish to pay for web hosting. The number of theme options is quite limited relative to blogger and WordPress. Just like blogger, you can customize themes with your own CSS.
Wix:
If you are a fan of flash websites, wix might be a good solution for you. There are a lot of themes to pick up from and the interface is good. There are ads served on your website though and you cannot use your existing domains for free. This is a good fit for invitations, portfolio kind of websites. However flash websites suck at SEO and hence if you need a business page, wix is definitely not the way to go.