Why Free Web Hosting is a Bad Idea?

In today’s digital era, having a website is simply not enough for business success and brand reputation. When comparing your business against competitors, the business that offers better online user experience more likely wins over others. So even if your business is small you can win competitive edge over big brands if it performs well for users. That means the design, functionality as well as the third party services involved with website have to be good. Particularly, when choosing third party services people are unable to make wise choices because they are confused with limitless options. Often they look for ways to save some bucks and unfortunately get stuck with low quality services. Hosting is one such thing where site owners often fall for the word “free” and later lose their peace of mind for making a wrong decision.

What is a Free Web Hosting?

Contrary to paid hosting services, free web hosting is an unpaid service for hosting the website on shared servers. There is a misconception that free hosting saves money and businesses don’t need to spend on hosting. The problem is, these services are suitable for personal and hobby sites where quality and reliability are not critical. But if you have a business website, you cannot rely on such low quality hosting which can close down their service provision any minute and you can’t really do anything about it. Even if they do continue providing service, you will have minimal control on your website and you may not know when the site will be down or malfunction.  Along with the limited capabilities of bandwidth and storage space, you may have to deal with other downsides like server issues, security vulnerabilities, lack of website support, limited capacity to support web development tools etc.

How Free Hosting Services con You into the Deal?

To attract customers, few hosting services offer free things initially but find it difficult to hold on to their promises for long term. At first they entice customers with unlimited features like bandwidth, disk space etc but fail to keep it over time due to inefficiencies. Some providers give free service when you sign up initially for hosting, but eventually they ask to take subscription after few months. It is better not to fall for such offers, because your site will be stuck with your host and you may have to compromise with many low quality things. They may even make it difficult if you plan to move your site to another host and you may have to spend extra money and effort to come out of the deal. Such bargains will not offer any meaningful benefit and you will end up risking your online business for the sake of saving few bucks. 

What is a Wise Option for Hosting?

When you are looking for a web host do not put cost as primary criteria to find a provider. While getting a free hosting is a bad idea, choosing an overpriced hosting service could become another wrong choice. Not all overpriced products guarantee higher quality. Similar is the case with web hosting. A high priced hosting may not always guarantee quality and it may not be worth the price which can make you feel disappointed for over paying. The wise option is look for the choices that offer quality hosting at reasonable price. You can even evaluate the hosting service and make judgment whether your choice is correct or not by using a website monitoring service. Monitoring service is good in analyzing uptime numbers and will check if the current hosting can accommodate the demands of website. The service will let you know the hosting provider’s performance and helps you to objectively identify if there is a necessity to change your existing hosting service.