There are a lot of so called free website hosting companies out there touting their services. While the accounts offered by many of these web hosting providers are free to use, there are sometimes hidden costs that can leave you wasting both time and money.
If you want to build websites that are truly free, you are going to have to carefully evaluate free website hosting services before signing up. Special considerations to keep in mind when shopping for web hosting providers include:
Web Hosting Reliability
You can build websites all day long, but no one will ever see them if your web host isn't reliable. To find out how reliable a free website hosting company is, you should ask about expected down times, traffic limitations, and customer services procedures. You should also ask what type of message will be displayed is the web site is disabled for any reason.
Web Hosting Bandwidth
The amount of bandwidth you have determines how long it will take for your pages to load. To keep costs low, many web hosting providers offering limited bandwidth. The problem with this is that your pages can take ten seconds or more to load. That's just enough time for a user to get frustrated and seek out another website. If your free website hosting account comes with limited bandwidth, you need to be prepared for the possibility of missing out on customer sales.
Unwanted Ads with Your Hosting Account
Free website hosting services are notorious for placing unwanted ads on customer websites. This means that you will have pop-ups and other annoying advertisements on your site that you cannot remove. These ads might become very irritating for you and even more so for your customers, who may choose not to visit as a result.
Other Free Website Hosting Limitations
If you want to build websites that include pictures, icons, and large amounts of text, you may want to look for web hosting providers that will allow you to build these kinds of websites. Some free Web site hosting services will place limitations on what you can and can't do. For example, you may be barred from using pictures or more than five-page websites. If you don't have the elements needed to build the type of site you want, you could end up wasting a lot of time on a site that will end up having to be rebuilt with a different host later on.
