Choosing Free or Paid Web Hosting

If you have decided to stake your claim on a corner of the world wide web, you may have looked into one of the many web hosts that provide free hosting plans. Some of these services are fine if you just want to put up a personal page or a page dedicated to your favorite TV show, but you may find yourself needing something more robust.

Picking a web host that fits your needs is important to the success of your web site, so if you are considering a free web hosting package, there are things that you should be aware of.

There are many benefits to free web hosting. Many free web hosts offer free subdomain names like http://www.yoursite.freehost.net. This prevents you from having to pay for a domain name.

Many subdomain names are easy to remember. The drawback to these subdomains is potential traffic loss. If you ever decide to move your web site from a free host to a paid package with your own custom domain name you may lose visitors.

Of course, nothing is ever free. Most free web hosts will place some sort of ad on your page. They may place a banner ad at the top or bottom of your page or they may place pop up or pop under ads on your page.

Most site visitors will overlook a banner ad, but too many pop up ads could cost you traffic. You will also lose control over what ads appear on your page.

You will likely receive a small bandwidth allowance with a free web hosting package. If you plan to offer downloadable files, a free web hosting plan will likely not be appropriate for you. You also take a chance that your web host will discontinue their free service. You may be forced to move your web site or begin paying for their service.

Paid web hosting offers benefits that free web hosting can’t. When you purchase a paid web hosting plan, you must have your own domain name. Many web hosts will give you a free domain name with the purchase of a year long package. Your own domain name belongs to you. You can take it with you if you switch web hosting providers.

You also receive a higher level of support with a paid web hosting plans. Many offer 24 hour customer service so you can get quick resolutions to any problems.

Many paid web hosts also offer uptime guarantees. If your website is always down, it will be hard to establish site visitor loyalty. If the web site is your business, you will want to make sure your web site is up as often as possible.

You can also host multimedia files with the bandwidth that is usually available through a paid web host provider. There will also be support for dynamic web content like flash movies and ASP scripts.

Even if you don’t write your own code, you can find pre-written scripts available for little or no cost all over the Internet.