In some cases, even though you need web hosting, you may not be able to pay for a hosting company for the service. Previously, free web hosting services once ruled the internet world. However, in recent years, the number of such free services on the internet has started dropping with more and more web host companies forcing their free subscribed users to place text/graphic ads, flash advertisement and banners on their websites.
The remaining free and cheap web hosting service providers started offering paid web hosting services with offered extra features, as a value added services on top of their existing everyday services. 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.
So why don’t you spent a little bit for a web hosting as you can get lots more advantages. You would be able to host your own domain. And if even you decide to change your web hosting provider eventually, you would be able to easily transfer your domain to your new provider and do not lose the traffic that you already have. A lot paid hosting providers also have 24/7 available support through live chat or email and they also often provide toll-free numbers for assistance. They also offer sufficient space and bandwidth, as well as standard features like MySQL and PHP. The only disadvantage is that paid hosting costs money.
