The Dangers of Using a Free Hosting Service
Free web hosting? It’s a dream come true! No matter what you say, ‘free’ is the best price going for absolutely anything.
But you should always be a bit cautious when it comes to free offers, especially when it comes to web hosting. To put it simply, free web hosting is never what it’s all cracked up to be. You can use free web hosting but you should be aware of the downsides before you sign up. Nevertheless, if you want to have the guarantee of the paid service but with a really low pricing, I would suggest you visit my UK2 Coupon and NetFirms Coupon pages. However, here are the main risks of opting for the free web hosting service:
Vulnerability to Hackers
If hackers hijack your site, you want a web hosting service that flies into action and turns your admin access into a fortress that they can’t get through. This is what you pay for when you hire a good web hosting company, and it’s often lacking with free services. There are even horror stories of free services saying things to their customers like, ‘Come on, it’s free! What did you expect?’ With a free service, the security very well might not be there.
Uptime You Can’t Rely on
You know how web hosting companies make guarantees on their websites that say things like ‘We promise 99% uptime?’ It costs money to run servers and that’s part of what you’re paying for. How can a free service promise to be reliable? A free service can’t possibly be the highest quality. If the uptime is really bad, you could lose data that’s not properly backed up. This is a risk you don’t want to take.
Annoying Ads that Drive away Visitors
So, how do free web hosting companies make their money? Most do it by splattering ads all over your site. You’ve probably seen those pop-ups offering you emoticons or ringtones, right? That’s what your visitors get when you use free web hosting. Even worse, Google hates ad-heavy sites. If yours is bogged down by senseless ads that ruin the user experience totally, you may lose traffic.
Domain Ugliness
Most free services don’t let you get your own domain. They give you something like yourwebsite.webhostingservice.com. Some free sites allow you to create your own totally original domain name but only if you upgrade and, of course, pay. The problem with this kind of domain name is that it’s ugly and not really what search engines like. It also advertises to your visitors that you’re using a free domain. If you’ve got a business website, this can really hurt your reputation by making you look cheap.
Room to Grow
When you use a free service, you just don’t get the disk space and data transfer capabilities that you need if you’re expecting your website to be big. Once it grows too big for the free hosting service, you’re going to have problems. You’ll then have to upgrade to a pay package or transfer your site to a regular hosting service.
Out of Your Control
Horror stories abound of free services pulling the plug on people’s sites with no reason or warning. When you use a free hosting service, the ball simply isn’t in your court. You’re not the boss. If your website or online business is really important to you, you need to be in total control and you only get that by paying.
Now, let’s break it down and see how much you’re really saving with free web hosting. Typically, a domain costs you something to the tune of around $10. Add to this your web hosting, which can be from as low as about $5 per month and you’re looking at $60 a year; and this is without even using a discount coupon. This is not a huge price to pay and it’s well worth it when you consider that you’ll avoid the dangers of free web hosting. After all, don’t you want your site to be secure and fully functional with all the on-the-side services given on one plan?