Web Hosting Free – Bad or Good Idea?

Is free web hosting good or bad idea? To discuss it we’d better star with the definition. Free web hosting refers to a web hosting service that is absolutely free and is widely supported by advertisements. Free web hosting providers are responsible for providing a sub domain, such as, “yoursite.xyz.com” or a directory, such as www.xyz.com/~yourname, to the clients. On the other hand, the paid web hosting providers generally provide a second-level domain with the hosting, like “www.yourname.com”. A majority of free web hosting providers or companies enable the usage of separately purchased domains. Free web hosts occasionally function as a domain name registrar.

Nowadays you can find free web hosting providers everywhere on the internet. They claim that they offer free web hosting but do they really walk the talk?

Let’s think through some logical reasoning behind this and how can web hosting service be offered free of charge when data centers are so expensive to maintain and run.

Business Motives
All business started, whether its web hosting or not, to make profits. If the business is not meant to make profit, it’s not even called business, it called “Charity”. You should know that starting a business to make loss is illegal and punishable under law. So if the motive of business is to make profit, how can a free web hosting help them reap profits. Just ask these two simple questions:

Do you think that the web hosting provider invests literally millions into their data centers & servers to offer you hosting for free?

Do you know of any web hosting provider that provide or claim to provide free web hosting business that are making loss?

You probably are baffled. But how do they do it? Read on.

Tricks of the Trade
So you can’t find one web hosting business that offer free hosting that makes a loss. That’s because they are recovering the loss made by hosting service through sale of other related products. Free hosting providers recover their cost through various means some of them are:

Tying arrangements: meaning you will be offered free hosting service only if you pay for some related product or service. E.g. Free web hosting only if you pay for non-transferable Domain name registration, which you might have to renew with them for the years to come.

Initial Incentive: all the hype about the free hosting is short lived. Free hosting is offered only for few days or for a trail period and at the end of such period the charges roll in.

Virtually Unusable: the features in the free web hosting is so demeaning that you can’t even use it. For example, free hosting for only one page website with no support or value.

Ads Ads Ads: other means of recovering the free hosting cost is to bombard your website or control panel with advertisements.

These are some of the tricks that free hosting companies play on you. Does it make sense why you shouldn’t opt for free web hosting. Still want free hosting, than at least don’t fall for the ones that are described below.

Back Door Operators
There are few (not all of them) hosting providers that provide you free hosting but in offering it, collect your personal data. These data are then used to send Spam or even sold to various marketing agents who may fill your inbox or mail boxes with heaps of product offers. All that they want from you is your personal details and if possible your financial details. To get it they might provide you with no charge website but you should know that it’s in fact done to dupe you into misery.

If common sense prevails and you really want to venture out in the online world, then regular web hosting plan are the best choice. Stay out of the pitfalls of free web hosting. If something is too good to be true, it probably is not.

There is nothing called “Free Lunch” in the business world.

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