The perils of using free hosting services

There are several aspects to keep in mind while finding a web host. The ultimate goal is to have a dependable web hosting service that will save you time and cost. One of the main considerations of course is cost, but don’t be influenced so much by web costs that you enter willy-nilly into a free hosting setup. Free hosting is often provided for only for a trial period - so make sure that you read the fine print of any agreements. Secondly, free hosting is often offered with the trade-off of adverts that are served on your website - how comfortable are you going to be with third party adverts on your site over which you have no control? Apart from that, if you are setting up a company website it hardly projects a professional image!

Free web hosts don’t offer much storage space and even limit the type of files you can use. For instance, you may not be allowed to upload files that need a lot of bandwidth, like MP3 files. This can severely limit the usefulness of your website. Free web hosts may also force you to use a sub-domain, which makes your website address much longer than it would have been, if you had your own domain name. It also and makes it tricky to promote your website since lots of places that you submit your site to do not accept sub domains.

The trick therefore is that one should try and find a website hosting provider that is cheap enough not to bankrupt you but still reliable enough to give you the assurance that your website will not disappear overnight!