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Just about anyone needs a web presence today; be it individuals for their personal interests or multi-national companies. It is almost like owning a property in cyber space in a bid to extend and widen one’s reach on a global scale. It is by far the fastest and most advanced mode of lending a global exposure for companies or individuals.
Web hosting companies offer various packages and the process involves renting computer space and bandwidth (data transfer capacity) from a company so that you can make your website visible to the outside world. While most web hosting companies offer various packages (paid-for services) to cater to various requirements and budgets, some companies also offer this service for free.
Although, it is proven that simple pleasures in life come for free, there is no concept of a free lunch in his world. When it comes to choosing the right web host, web masters often find themselves racking their brains and find it quite a daunting task to get the most reliable host on the internet. Free web hosting services is something that almost anyone would be instantly attracted to. Although the word free can be quite enticing, the services are not always virtually free. It is more of a symbiotic relation between the web master and the web hosting provider. A free web hosting service usually entails a set of limitations such as lack of autonomous domain name. Look at it this way- While the hosting company may not charge you a dime for the services offered; they will try to extract benefits from those webmasters who plan to use their services. While the service is free, it comes with a host of limitations and the web master may not wield complete control over some vital and essential features. The limitations faced by the web master may include a small server place, non-ability of using the FTP clients, no domain name, and lots of ads from the web company and limited or no access to other benefits which are otherwise offered by the paid services. The web hosts thus try to cover their costs by displaying their ads or some other companies. Therefore, there are a number of vital aspects to be considered before choosing the best free web hosting company.
Firstly, it is important to weigh in one’s mind what exactly is your requirement and the purpose of hosting a web site. Secondly, try to ascertain what exactly is the free hosting company offering and whether or not it would meet your intended requirements. Other factors that need to be taken into consideration are; how much space they are offering, any statistics, what domain name they offer, do they offer the ability to use your own domain name or provide name servers, do their provide email address capability, what sort of ads that they put on your website and where they put that? Would the ads on your website be pop-ops or banners or slides? After researching the above aspects, you would get a brief idea where exactly your web-site would stand and what would be its future like.
As far as the requirement is concerned, today the websites are either static or dynamic. Most of the free web hosting companies provide static web hosting. If the web site is dynamic, it is very important that your free web host gives you the ability to host your website with the scripting languages that you have used. Very few web hosting companies provide dynamic services. The companies that offer dynamic services; may impose other limitations like no or less database availability. Most of the free web hosts offer 5MB-50 MB of web space depending upon various other factors. Therefore, more the space used by the web master, more he/she may have to compromise on other features or benefits. Most of the free hosts don’t provide the use of your own domain names as it hinders their own benefits in this way. In order to keep a share of their own identity on the World Wide Web; most of the time the web address that your website is uploaded becomes www.yourname.freehosting.com or www.freewebhosting.com/yourname.
Another issue that the web masters might find themselves addressing is reliability of the free web hosts. Most of the free web hosts are one who have old servers and give free space so as to cover the cost by getting free advertising by providing space. This is the sole reason that the web masters are not given any prior assurance that servers will be running 24 hours a day without any frequent breakdowns. They also might not offer a good bandwidth. So, the web master needs to decide beforehand if the free service is really worth being “free”. If the web site gains popularity and attracts traffic in hordes, then there is a possibility that it can go beyond the server bandwidth limit and this will block the website till next month.
Free web hosting is therefore a practical solution for those who don’t mind compromising on the above features. It is also an ideal solution for those who are just beginning to explore the web hosting world and want their web site to get a feel of the cyber space. Furthermore, if the web master, online business amateur or newbie wants a static presence in the web world till he/she learns the subtle nuances of web hosting, it is an ideal way to start with free web hosting.
There are a few free web hosting companies who promise not to add banners, ads or the otherwise annoying pop-ups on your website. Even beneath such an offer the service may not completely be offered free of cost. For example; DotEasy.com, promises “Cost-free, Banner-free” hosting, but in reality what they are really saying is that if you register a domain from them for $25/year, or if you would like to transfer a domain for a $35 fee; only then will they give you 100 MB of free hosting, that’s why they can offer $5 dollars for each referral to DotEasy.com’s “free” hosting. This may however be a good deal, per se.
Mentioned below are a few tips to be kept in mind when choosing a free web hosting provider:
- It is better to choose for a free web hosting provider who puts ads on your site over the one that claims not to. This is primarily because most companies prefer a symbiotic or a healthy partner relationship with their client; and are seemingly more stable. On the other hand, if the company claims not to place any ads or banners on your web site, then the web masters may find themselves facing certain limitations or restrictions on certain beneficial features which are otherwise offered by free web hosting providers. Certain web hosts may even exploit the web masters in an attempt to make a quick buck like selling your e-mail address or shrinking your space to force you to upgrade to a paid package.
- It is advisable to always a choose a free web hosting provider that offers sub domains in the format of “http//yoursite.theirsite.com” instead of “http//www.theirsite.com/yoursite”. This kind of a format not only lends a profession feel to the web master’s web site but also helps with getting returning visitors and Search Engine Optimization.
- It is also equally important to make certain that the company offers you with upgrades (both for sub domains and domains). This is because; when the sub domains start attracting heavy amounts of traffic and begins to generate profits, you will not want to be changing your sites URL and loosing all of your returning visitors and search engine rankings.
The concept is plain and simple. Free web hosting may be free virtually; it is in essence a healthy partner relation between the web master and the hosting company. One just needs to weigh the pros over the cons and make sure what suits their online business the best. It is important not to lose the partnership balance and choose a performance based free web hosting provider.It is important to note that the reliability quotient of the brand new web hosting providers, who are fairly new to this arena, may be quite low. For example, if a web hosting provider offers features and benefits that are too good to be true, you may want to steer clear of that company. To explain this better, let’s take the example of a host that went offline a few months ago. hey were offering 500MB of storage, 10GB of bandwidth per month, domain hosting, unlimited domain parking, CPanel with just about all possible features, absolutely no ads and with 150 posts in their forum. After cashing in on the money from AdSense, they just disappeared and went offline, without any prior notice. Therefore, it is important to exercise precaution and discretion when selecting a free web hosting company who is new to this field.
These are the things that need to be looked at before choosing a free web host provider:
- Design: If the site design looks as though its being used from a free template site, its obviously not a professional and reliable company.
- Do some prior research on the company and find out how long have they been around. This would at least give you a brief idea of their credibility and reliability.
- Check their Google PR, ranking on free hosting directories and other similar locations. If the site has tons of inbound links, the owners have probably spent a considerable amount of money advertising it and have their client’ best interest in mind.
As mentioned earlier, most of the free web hosts place ads or banners on your web site for the free services that they offer. If possible, pick a host that allows you to place a banner code anywhere you want. This way, you will get the freedom to place the banner where ever you like and where it would fit best on the web site.There are also a few hosts that won’t plug in banners or other forms of advertising in exchange for performing other services in their favor. In return, they would ask for posting in their forum or referring other members. It is highly advisable to watch out for sites that place or display pornographic ads. Also, pop-ups can be very annoying. Make sure that the site does not advertise through pop-ups. If the site allows your ad to displayed, then it would definitely be a good deal. Forums, guest books, counters, polls are always nice features to add to your site. Make sure that the free host offers these basic add-ons to enhance the functionality of your website. On the other hand, if your chosen host provides very few or no such tools, then it’s probably either running on a slow server or they prefer not to clog it up. This would certainly reflect the quality and reliability of the company. Furthermore, look for a host who offers a minimum of 1 GB of traffic per month. It is recommended to select a host who offer an upgrade to a paid subscription in case you go over the limited quota. Also take note of the fact that search engines also eat up bandwidth, a deep crawl from a spider can eat up as much as 100MB if you have a lot of pages.
Try to look for a host who would offer a short URL for free. Longer URLs are hard to remember and may not lend a professional appeal to the web site. Choose a host that offers a sub domain if available. There are other limitations that the web master may have to face with a free hosting account. Your free web host will have rules regarding the size of photos, icons, and more that you can upload. Therefore, it is important to look into the finer details as it may affect your online business in the future. If the web site is expected to grow in the long run, then a free account may limit its activity. So, it would be great to look for a web host who offers a paid subscription for future growth.
At the end of it all; you may rack your head over the rather baffling question if it is really possible to run a successful website on free hosting. While most people will answer “no” to that question; if the user laps up on enough information and takes care of the related technicalities, your free web hosting website need not be a damp squib. If the right marketing techniques are applied; it is possible to make your website grow on free hosting. Make sure, your website is free of pop-up ads as that can be rather annoying for visitors, and that would not generate any interest among the visitors. Moreover, people would tend to think of the credibility of the website on a free hosting. This problem can be overcome by giving your visitors the best quality information as possible and make that the best original content. The key is web site optimization. Title, description and keywords tags are very important to your site’s success. The title, description and keyword tag combination can strengthen your web site ranking considerably. It is advisable to toy around and test various variations and assess what best works for your web site. Link popularity can make or break your website. Almost all of the major search engines use this as the main factor when giving you a ranking. You need to find quality websites similar to yours to link with. The more quality links, the better it is for you. The best weapon however is a positive attitude and mindset and application of the appropriate marketing strategies.
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