Free Web Hosting Plans vs Paid Plans – The Facts

What is the difference between shared (paid) web hosting and free web hosting? This is an important question for those who are interested in setting up web sites. Whether just for blogging or promoting a cause, or trying to make money with a business, the type of hosting you choose can make a big difference in your site and the reaction of your visitors. Just setting up shop on a free social site like Facebook isn't always a great idea.

When you post anything on social sites like Facebook, you are in essence creating a web page that is all about you, but subject to the rules and regulations of the site. If they decide one day they don't like what you have posted, or make a major change to the site guidelines, your work can go right down the drain. Owning and posting to your own site avoids this.

With the price of paid hosting down to reasonable levels, it makes sense now to consider it. You can register a domain for under $10 a year, and set up paid hosting for about the same amount per month. These paid packages have plenty of disk space and bandwidth allowance for most average webmasters, usually with room for multiple sites if you're inclined to create them.

Even with pay by the month hosting being so cheap, some folks still like the idea of free web hosting. If your site is small, strictly for fun, and you wouldn't mind if it went away suddenly then free hosting might be okay for you. If your intention is to promote any business or sell anything, free hosting isn't a good idea.

On the up side, free web hosting is indeed free. No strings attached, usually. Nonetheless, there are drawbacks and reasons that the hosting is free.

In most cases, the hosting provider reserves the right to run ads on your site, usually on the top or side margins. This won't disturb your content, but can make viewing it annoying to others, and make your pretty design and setup look pretty lousy.

Visitors to your site will also be treated to pop ups and pop unders, which are additional advertisements that the free web host places there.

Free hosting is for small sites that don't get a lot of traffic, and don't use a lot of video or file transfers. Don't plan on having more than a small, simple site with these hosts.

You can't use your own domain with free hosting. Typically, your web address will be something along the lines of: bobjones.freehostingprovidername.com. This might be okay, but lacks a personal flair if that's what you want.

Remember that free hosts are counting on making money from the ads on your site. They hope you'll bring in traffic that will click the ads and buy something. They then make money from the click, or from the sale. It's a great deal. Problem is, if it doesn't go well, the host can shut down at anytime and all your work and effort is gone forever.

My bottom line suggestion is to avoid free web hosting altogether. Paid hosting is very inexpensive now, and the features and control you have over your site are more than worth the small monthly fee. If you have nothing to lose, free hosting is okay, just know the downside of going that route.

Publishing your own web site is a great thing to do!. When choosing a web hosting provider, you have quite a lot of often confusing choices. Learn the truth about whether free web hosting is a plan that will meet your needs. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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