Free hosting is just what it says it is- hosting without any cost. Many web hosting companies provide this service. While this may sound enticing, there are things to keep in mind when using free hosting. If you want success online, it may be in your best interest to pay for web hosting. In this article, we will discuss why you should not use free hosting.
Why You Should Not Use Free Hosting
Everyone loves free things. But not all things in life that are free are good. A perfect example of this is free hosting.
There are so many reasons as to why you should never use free hosting.
The biggest reason you should not use free hosting is that you do not own your site. It can be removed at any time the free hosting company decides to remove it.
And since you do not own the site, you will never be able to sell it.
Free hosting is also not very credible. People will look at your site and think that you are cheap.
And if they think that you are cheap, they are most likely not going to visit your site.
And let us not forget that Google does not like sites as much that use free hosting. You will make much better spending money for a host.
And if you are the type of person that needs help with something, do not think that you will get excellent support with free hosting. Most times, you will not get any support.
If you are new to hosting, you may have many questions. With no support, you will end up wasting your time searching for tutorials trying to set your site up.
If you like speed, free hosting is not for you. Most times, free hosting is nowhere near as fast as paid hosting. Pay for your hosting to get speed.
Let’s talk ads. If you hate ads, then free hosting is not for you. Ads can be plastered all over your site, even if they are not relevant to your site.
With free hosting, you can not customize your site. So you are missing out on many plugins and other technology that can make your site better.
How can hosts afford to offer free hosting?
You may wonder how a hosting site can afford to offer free hosting.
Remember when we talked about ads above?
This is the way they are making their money. They may not be getting it from you, but those ads are paying them.
Since the hosting company is not going to make money from you, they are not going to care if the ads on your site will pertain to your content or not.
If you ever see a site that offers tips and tutorials about makeup and hair care, but they have ads for pet care or siding, chances are they are using free hosting.
You can tell since the niche of the site has nothing to do with the ads.
The website owner probably finds this very annoying. But in all reality, anyone visiting the site finds it way more annoying!
Perhaps the free host will not have you partake in ads on your site.
Instead, you may be asked to become an affiliate. Or they may have you visit their affiliate sponsors.
If you are not interested in affiliates, free hosting is probably something that you should pass on.
How limited are free hosting sites?
Free hosting is very limited. If you are new to having your own website, limited may not be a huge deal. But down the road, this could cause issues.
Common features may not be included in your free hosting plan.
These common features may include:
- Software scripts
- Root directory access
- One-click auto-installers
- SMTP emails
- Ability to edit DNS settings
Issues with free hosting
There are many issues with free hosting. If you are not paying for it, you are risking your website in a variety of ways. Here are the main issues with free hosting.
- Servers have very poor performance. Too many websites are using the same server. What this means for you is that your uptime may be significantly lower than you expect it to be. There may be several hours of downtime per day.
- Your website may be here today, gone tomorrow. At any point, your website can be taken down. For any reason. You may not even get a warning that your site is going down.
- It is not secure. Your data may be shared with anyone whether you want or expect it to.
As you can see, there are many issues that free hosting causes.
In Summary
We all love a great deal.
Many feel that free is always a great deal.
However, when it comes to web hosting, this is not true.
Free hosting can cause many issues, from no support or not ranking as well as if you paid for hosting.
Plus you are missing out on a lot of plugins that have the potential to make your site even better.
And free hosting has many risks associated with it, such as having your data shared with others.
Have you used free hosting? If so, feel free to leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts on free hosting.
