If you’re in the process of choosing a suitable host for your domain, you’re probably going to ask yourself, “Why should I pay for hosting when I can have it for free?” The response depends on the essence of your location. A paid hosting plan is key for some sites, while for others, a free host can provide all the facilities you need. But which one do you choose?
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Free Hosting Pitfall
If you’ve been designing websites for over a year, you’re likely to be moving to paid hosting if you’re not even on a paid schedule. As an advanced coder and planner, you might be familiar with the frustrations of hosting your site on a free server.
1. Overload of Ads
Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when you hear of free hosting is the spread of unwelcome advertising on all your sites. Unfortunately, many free hosts rely entirely on these advertisements to make money, so few deliver services that are free from compulsory advertising. The final result? Visitors to your web can see a 468×60 pixel banner on the top of each of your pages. Or maybe they’ve faced with a pop-up banner any click down. In any case, these advertisements will severely reduce the professionalism of well-designed websites.
2. More downtime here.
Downtime is plagued by a lot of free web hosts. The fact that their users do not pay for content means that many free hosts are less than committed when it comes to reliability. Free hosts are seldom interrupted if any users are disappointed with the service-that tiny minority is always of little to no direct value to the host.
3. Bad service for the consumer
Most free hosts do not have the money to recruit customer service teams. If you encounter difficulties, you will find yourself depending heavily on the Frequently Asked Questions page of your host-after all, the odds of having some live or email help may be almost non-existent.
4. Limited Storage
If your site is big, you might find free web hosting very limited. Most free hosts only provide users with 5 to 10 MB of space, so you will never be able to extend your platform beyond your allocated disc space without switching to a paying host.
5. Ad Revenue Limitations
Many free hosts do not allow you to sell advertisement space on your web. This may be fine if you merely maintain a personal webpage, but it may have a significant effect on sales for company websites. A paying service could be the only feasible hosting alternative for these sites.
6. No secure access to the server
If you’re planning to create an online store, you’ll need a secure server to support secure online credit card processing. Most free hosts do not support stable web servers, and the lack of secure service will make it almost difficult for an online store to existing on a free service, considering the customer’s concerns of fraud, privacy, and protection.
7. Restrictions of File Type
Many free web hosts do not accept file extensions other than.html, which can be very restricted. For example, if you create a big website with the same navigation on each page, you might use SSI, which allows you the option to change the browsing style on one page and have the same modification carried out automatically overall sites. SSI will save you a lot of time and stress, but it creates files that end up in .html. You’ll need an SSI-enabled server to care for these files, which can be almost difficult to locate via a free host.
8. Long Domain Names
Paid hosts encourage their clients to use their own domain names, although most of the free sites ask you to exclude a subdomain from the hostname. In the case of Geocities, a standard URL may be equivalent to “http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/2719/Food/Pizza.htm.” Domains like these almost fully prohibit people from accessing your site from memory-they would need to bookmark your site or locate it quickly via a search engine or other related pages. Obviously, this will have a significant impact on the traffic the platform attracts. Free or paid for? It’s up to you, man.
If you can see, in most situations, a paying web host offers a lot superior experience than free hosts. Free web hosting can be suitable for personal homepages and sites that do not rely on internet ads or sales revenue. But for those in the industry, whether they’re selling online or merely wishing to show a competent web presence, paid hosting is usually the only choice worth exploring. Maybe the old saying is true: you get what you’re paying for.
