The Disadvantages of Hosting a Website for Free

1. The Disadvantages of Hosting a Website for Free

2. Table of Contents • Website • Web Hosting • Web Hosting Classification • Free Web Hosting • Drawbacks of Free Web Hosting • Poor Security • Impacts Adversely a Website’s Search Engine Rankings • Slow Speed, Low Downtime • Unexpected Shutdown Resulting in Loss of Data • Impossible to Monetize • Poor Design • Run-of-the-mill Domain Name • Many Limitations • Not Mobile-Friendly • Limited or Unavailable Analytics • Unavailability of Support • Free Hosted Site can’t be Sold • Conclusion

3. Website Hosting • It is a collection of related web pages and content that is located under a single domain name as well as identified by a common domain name and hosted on a particular web server. Its content is usually focused on a certain topic or purpose. • The World Wide Web (www) is formed by all those websites that are accessible publicly.

4. Web Hosting • Every website is hosted on a particular server of a web hosting company. A web hosting company provides the technology and services which are needed to make a website accessible to everyone over the Internet. • This service can be a paid service where there are various plans to choose from or it can be a free service where one does not pay any money to host one’s website. There are many web hosts and some of them have earned the reputation of being the best website hosting companydue to their consistent high quality of service.

5. Web Hosting Classification • The main types of web hosting are- Shared, Dedicated, VPS, Reseller, WordPress and Cloud. For example, when we talk about “Cloud Hosting Services in Delhi”, it refers to a type of web hosting that is cloud based. • Web hosting can also be classified based on the operating system that is in use, Windows or Linux. Terms such as “Best Windows Hosting Services 2020” refer to the operating system that is in use, i.e. Windows in this case. • Then there is Corporate Web Hosting meant for enterprises that are looking for a secure and stable online presence. It is a premium web hosting solution that offers powerful features and allows complete control over key features such as database and emails.

6. Free Web Hosting When availing free web hosting service, one does not pay the web host any money for this service. In this case, sub domains are provided to those people who want to create their own website for free. It is often offered by many web hosts when a client buys some other service/ product from them. One needs to buy a domain for web hosting (which is a paid service) when one needs a website with a domain name which does not contain any external site’s name.

7. Drawbacks of Free Web Hosting American business executive, Tim Cook, had said, “When an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.” This is true for free web hosting service as well which has little value to offer and major drawbacks which shall be touched upon in the following slides.

8. Poor Security Free websites will not have adequate security measures in place which makes these vulnerable to hackers and susceptible to malicious attacks. Usually, the terms and conditions of web hosts providing free hosting, grants them total legal immunity. Hence, they might have the authority to sell your personal information, your website address and your email address and might also have the right to use your content. Read the terms and conditions thoroughly to ensure this doesn’t happen and that your personal details are kept confidential.

9. Impacts Adversely a Website’s Search Engine Rankings Free websites are considered less important by search engines. That is why search engines give such websites less priority. Irrelevant advertisements are usually played on such websites by the free web hosting service providers. This impacts adversely the stature of the website. Spammers get the chance to create dummy websites by using free hosting platforms. Free domains can even be penalized if they have sites full of spam.

10. Slow Speed, Low Downtime Free web hosting service slows loading speed. This happens because too many sites share one server, its resources and bandwidth. Free web hosting has the drawback of experiencing greater downtime due to low bandwidth and lesser data transfer capacity. You can’t upload too many images or videos using it. This happens because you do not get enough disk space when availing free web hosting service. Free hosting is characterized by low uptime as well.

11. 1-800-123 -8156 Whoa! That’s a big number, aren’t you proud?

12. Unexpected Shutdown Resulting in Loss of Data Apart from experiencing a perpetual low downtime, free web hosting provider can even wrap up his business and disappear without providing any reason. In this case your site will disappear as well and become unavailable. You will lose your domain name as it is a subdomain associated with this service.

13. Impossible to Monetize When you are hosting your site for free, you cannot make money from your site as usually web hosting companies don’t allow you to place your advertisements and add affiliate links. Additionally, they run banner advertisements in the premium space on your site. This affects adversely the user experience of your site.

14. Poor Design Most of the free websites have limited number of templates. Hence, you can’t create your own design which results in poor aesthetic value.

15. Run-of-the-mill Domain Name When using free service, you neither have your own domain nor do you have have a branded email address. This gives a rather unprofessional impression to those that visit your site.

16. Many Limitations Free hosting service usually offers limited disk space and has quite strict bandwidth limitations. Hence, it is not possible to expand your site and create as many pages as you want. Some useful tools, plugins and services are unavailable for free websites. Yet another limitation with free hosting is that it doesn’t allow you to install WordPress.

17. Not Mobile-Friendly In this day and age mobile devices are being used extensively for browsing the Internet. Another huge disadvantage of free websites is that these are not mobile-friendly.

18. Limited or Unavailable Analytics Analytics is either limited or doesn’t exist at all in the case of free websites. Having access to analytics is an important factor that helps you to improve your site

19. Unavailability of Support Free web hosting being a free service, support is almost always unavailable in it. If any technical issue crops up, there will be no support to rely on, for its resolution.

20. Free Hosted Site can’t be Sold Most of the free site providers don’t allow you to sell, transfer, share or use your website in any way for any commercial purpose. That is because a free website isn’t your own property. If you try to sell it discreetly, the web hosting provider can identify that and then remove it from the search engine index.

21. Conclusion When choosing a web hosting service utmost care must be taken to ensure that it meets all your hosting needs and offers you a hassle-free experience. With so many drawbacks, a free web hosting service is definitely not a viable option for web hosting. Opting for free web hosting service is a perfect example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

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