subject: Are You Really Getting A Good Deal With Free Or Cheap Web Hosting Services? [print this page] Spend only a short time browsing on the internet and you will discover that there are a number of cheap or even free web hosting services out there. Is it a good idea to sign up with one of these services, however, or should you be looking for one that is a little more expensive? Many people will tell you that you should always pay a little bit more and hire a better quality hosting provider, as there are a number of problems experienced by these cheaper hosts.
Some of the problems associated with a free or a cheap web hosting provider include:
Long URLs that often have the hosting services name stuffed somewhere in them.
Adverts on your website for the web hosting provider and their affiliates; if your visitors click on these links, the host makes some money and you loose a visitor.
Minimal space and bandwidth on which to upload your website, meaning that it must be pretty basic to fit.
Restricted ability to conduct your own advertising and to run more of an ecommerce site that processes sales.
Cannot obtain an SSL certificate or handle transactions securely through a free or cheap host.
Technology is often outdated (which affects the appearance of your website) and takes a long time to load.
Pearl, CGI and scripts are rarely updated to their most current versions; any requests for this to be done are often denied.
Support is either non-existent, is not helpful in the slightest or takes a long time to respond to emails/phone calls.
Do not give you access to the tools you need to actually build a website, leaving you to instead fend for yourself.
And these are only the problems associated with the web hosting provider themselves. There are a number of other problems that are notorious amongst free and relatively cheap services, including their attraction for spammers, scammers, phisers and hackers. These people will cause all sorts of additional problems for your website that are just not worth the hassle.
So, are you really getting a good deal by signing up with a free or a cheap web hosting provider? In short, no you are instead signing yourself up to be party to a number of problems that will cause your website to perform quite low in rankings and to appear as unprofessional to any potential visitors. You really are better off spending a little extra money to get something more reputable.
