There are many free hosting sites claim to provide hosting to your web site without charge. Usually they impose restrictions, either cost you in time, or change your free web pages layout by displaying banners, pop-ups, or other form of advertisement. When you look for free web hosting services from search engine, you should take note that there are also many commercial hosting companies that advertise to offer free hosting services. However, usually they come with a catch, such as spending an excessive amount to buy a domain name or other service. They are not really free actually. The free free hosting tips as stated below will show you how to find a good free web host and the things you need to consider when go for it.
How do the free web hosts make money?
The free web hosting companies often make money through other ways, such as putting pop-ups, banners or other advertisement on your free web pages. Some will ask you to click on banners during their sign-up process or in control panel, or just display banners in the file manager page in hopes you will click their Ads. Some attract visitors with free hosting services in hopes you will upgrade and spend for advanced features. Certain free web hosting providers will send you emails with ads attached, or may even sell your email. Another approach that is becoming popular is requiring you to write a certain amount of “quality” post on forum. In such a way this help them to create free content and therefore being able to show more ads.
Are free web hosts reliable?
Understanding is that generally they are less reliable, although there are still exceptions. If the free host is earning money from ads, banner or other sources of income directly from their free service, then more likely they will stay in business. This also bases on the assumption no one abuse their web hosting server by activities like hacking or spam, which could be likely to happens to new free host with more liberal policies of accepting users from anywhere. It is better to choose a very selective free host company which only accepts quality sites.
Who should use free web hosts?
Free hosting is not suitable for businesses unless you have domain hosting from an ad-free host. Other reasons for using free hosting websites can be to learn the basic skills of how to host your site, to build a personal website to show pictures to your friends and family, to build a linking page to another web site of yours, or to test new scripts on different web hosting environments.
How to find good free web hosting companies?
The best place to start with is a quality free web host directory – a web site which specializes in listing only free web hosting services. Good directories will add new information and remove outdated hosts every week but there are also directories which almost never update, resulting most of their links and data are outdated. The problem is free hosts change frequently, it is not rare that some just fold up in less than a year, making it difficult to keep the free host directory up-to-date. One recommended directory is “Free Web Hosting” which has a detailed list of over 600 free web hosting providers with ratings, user reviews, and a searchable database. The directory is updated frequently, and the advanced free web hosting search has over 40 options, helping you to find the free package with different features such as PHP, CGI, MySQL, SSI, ASP, FrontPage server extensions, and even a cpanel.
Other resources to find free web hosts include information from freebies sites, search engines, forums…etc. Some ISP will also come with free web hosting service.
Tips for finding the best free web hosting provider
One basic principle is not to choose a free hosting plan with more features than you need, and also do some research before to see if the company is receiving revenue from the free hosting service to maintain business. As mentioned previously, better try to join a more selective free host if possible. Check other sites hosted there to find out what type of ads are running, and the server speed. Read the Terms of Service and host features to make sure your site is given enough bandwidth, sufficient web space and file size limit, and any scripting options you might need. Refer to the free hosting directories for the reviews and ratings as commented by other users. If you do not have your own domain name, you will need a free URL forwarding service so you can change your host later when required.
Recommended free web host
It is not easy to recommend one as different people have different priorities and the web hosting quality may vary from time to time. Also some people want free hosting with your own purchased domain name, and others might not be planning to buy a unique domain.
Below are two popular free web hosts, and their main features.
1.GoDaddy – It is probably the biggest domain and web hosting providers in US. Registration of dot com domain name can be as low as $1.99 and the domain renewal fee is generally less than $10 a year. Once you register a domain name from GoDaddy you get 10GB of free web space. It also comes with a free site builder called Website Tonight that allow you to build a 5 page website, a blog or photo album online without skills of HTML.
2. 50Webs – It offers 60MB web storage, unlimited bandwidth and POP3 email. You can upload your site file via a file manger or FTP. No advertisement or pop-ups will be shown on your web pages. 50Webs provides free subdomain for your site, or you can transfer your own domain to it. You can use it for multiple domains and subdomains under the same hosting account.
If you are building a commercial or ecommerce web site (for example a internet shop), you need to find a professional web hosting companies as free host providers generally cannot accommodate your need. Try to check out this site Mywebhostingweb.com which review and pick up good web hosting companies every month for your consideration.
