There are plethora of free hosting providers available in the online market. Is it true that choosing any one of these providers help gaining success in the online world? How can i choose between a right host and an ineffective host offering free hosting services? what are the things that i should keep in mind while selecting a free host? Please help.
Thanks in advance.
I shall be honest, free hosting isn't the best.
The way free hosting often works, is you shall normally be given a subdomain which sits in front of the main domain, so if I owned the hosting company Example.com and you owned the website MyWebsite, the domain would become mywebsite.example.com.
So, why isn't this ideal?
If you where to look at this, it is a lot to remember, and if you did remember it you are more likely to remember the example.com bit. It is the same with any website, take Daniweb for example, you would remember Daniweb.com but you don't remember that this forum is infact Daniweb.com/web-development
What is free hosting good for I hear you ask (oh... you didn't ask? Well I will tell you anyway).
Free hosting is ideal for things that you don't want to monetise, so things like blogs which you would share with friends and family. If you do want to make money, or if it is a serious website then you shall want to pay for hosting so that you can give it your own domain name.
What if I can already give it my own domain name?
Well, you are fortunate to find such a service, however let's look at it from a logistical point of view? That free website host is needing to pay for internet, power, bandwidth and the maintenance of servers. If they are to be giving it away for free, are these really going to be reliable? Proper hosting companies shall be using servers costing thousands, and noone is going to be able to afford that if they don't charge, meaning you shall end up with a cheap server which could struggle under load or is intermittent.
So, to conclude I would find a hosting package, start of small and then if your site grows upgrade to something more expensive and if it fails you are likely to of lost about £6 for the month.
What if I still want to use free hosting?
Look for a host which offers lots of details about their servers, the chances are they know what they are talking about instead of someone which says "Superfast" and "Powerful".
If they offer you details, look at it and ask yourself if it covers everything you need such as PHP Server Sides, Databases etc.
Do an internet search for reviews, see if anyone else has used it and if they would recommend it.
Don't bother with a host whos website takes ages to load... if they can't even get their site running why should they be able to get yours running?
Good luck!
Free doesn't mean always mean best and premium doesn't always mean better... it just depends on your needs....
Just always remember... Anything on the internet that's free is free as in beer.. :)
If you want to host your website just for sharing your thoughts, photos etc., then I suggest you to use free webhosting. But, if your motive is to make money, or make a good and reputable online presence, then I recommend you to avoid free web hosting.
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