Web Hosting Articles

Web Hosting: Free or Not?

In a utopian world, anything that’s free is always good. But unluckily for us, it’s not Thomas More’s dimension we exist in but something called “reality”. And reality dictates that free web hosting is not ideal for all kinds of users.

WHY GO FOR FREE WEB HOSTING?

Personal Websites

You want to join the blogging community or you want to set up your own personal homepage. Maybe you want to dedicate an online shrine to Paris Hilton. Whatever the reason is, as long as it’s personal, this type of website is ideal for a free web hosting plan because why pay for something that you don’t expect to earn profit from?

Low Expected Traffic

Even though your website is intended for commercial purposes but the expected traffic it will get per day is minimal or low then it’s okay to disregard paying for a higher web hosting plan. The amount of bandwidth usually provided by free web hosting plans is usually enough for most small-time businesses whose target markets are within local areas and not in a global scale.

WHY GO FOR PAID WEB HOSTING?

No Unwanted Advertisement

Isn’t it irritating that whenever you visit a particular website that uses a free web hosting plan, it also means clicking close several pop ups and other unwanted ads every minute or so? And don’t those larger than life banners sometime ruin the layout of your website? With a paid web hosting account, you get to eradicate all these advertisement problems. But if and when you do want to have advertisements on your website, you get to pick what types of ads you’ll feature, where you want to place them and how often do you want them to appear.

More Add-On Features

With a paid web hosting plan, you get to enjoy more features that are normally not provided by free web hosting plans such as anonymous FTP, unlimited number of email accounts and pre-installed CGI scripts for guest books and et al.

RELIABILITY

Paid web hosting plans can guarantee and are obliged of course to provide reliable service to their customers unlike free web hosting providers who only promise the same thing but are not exactly legally bound to keep their word. For businesses that rely solely on their websites to reach their markets, reliability means less downtime.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

With a paid web hosting plan, you get 24/7 customer support and you contact them online or by phone. Rarely do free web hosting providers give you this option.