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Web Hosting - Free vs Paid Web Hosting Options
Everyone likes to get something for free. But as the existence of spam shows, free isn't always good. Sometimes, it's downright harmful. Deciding whether it's worth the cost to pay for hosting involves a number of complex considerations.
Hosting companies that offer free services obviously can't stay in business from the money they make from you, since there isn't any. So why do they offer free hosting and how do they make money? Why should you care, so long as you get yours? Because, in reality, there's a price of some kind for everything, even something that's free.
Free hosting may come from a company doing a promotion to attract business. They expect to demonstrate their value, then charge an existing customer base fees to make up for what they lost by the (short term) offer. It's in essence a form of advertising.
But free hosting is offered by lots of companies that are not dedicated to managing servers for websites. Google, Yahoo and thousands of others provide a modest amount of disk space and a domain name on a server for free. Users are free to do anything they like with it, though if the load becomes excessive you can be shut down.
That introduces one of the more obvious drawbacks to free hosting: resource limitations.
Typically free hosting offers a relatively small amount of space. That's often enough to host a few dozen pages. But an active site can quickly run out of room.
A more serious limitation is load.
Free hosting often places strict limitations on the allowed amount of bandwidth consumed. If you become a well-visited site, when users start banging away on the server, you can be asked to leave or simply be blocked for the rest of the month. Or, you may be permitted a certain quantity of total bandwidth use per month. Once it's reached, no one else can reach your site until the beginning of a new month.
At the same time, you will certainly be sharing equipment with thousands of other sites. Their load can affect your performance, prompting you to move. Migrating an established site brings with it a number of thorny issues that might be better avoided in the first place.
Free hosting has another potential downside: lack of support. When you pay for hosting you typically get, at least in theory, a certain level of support. Backups in case of disaster recovery from a hack or server failure, assistance in analyzing connection problems... the variety is endless. With free hosting you usually get none of that.
A company or site that offers free hosting will usually recover a disk or server that fails completely and you'll be back up when they do. But if only selected portions of the drive fail, or you lose a few files through a virus attack or accidental deletion, you have to rely on backups to recover. A free service will usually come with no such option.
That may not be a problem if you have a small site. You can make copies of everything at another location and simply recover the site yourself - if you have the discipline to keep it current and the skills to make and restore the copy.
Free hosting will typically come with a few email addresses, intended to be used for administration and other tasks. But if your needs grow beyond that, you'll need to seek another option. The email service also comes with minimal oversight. The server may be protected against spam attacks and provide virus scanning. But few free services will provide even minimal help with any issues that arise.
But the most serious limitation may have nothing to do with any technical issues. Free hosting services often require that your site's pages carry some form of advertising that pays the host, not you. That may be fine for you, or it may not. Individual circumstances vary.
On the other hand, if you're just starting out, a free hosting option can be a great way to learn needed skills and a few of the potential pitfalls. You can set up a site, learn how to maintain and improve it, and not care too much if it gets hacked. Freely hosted sites can be a great platform for learning the ropes.
Free services don't usually offer any of the features that an active, commercial site will need sooner or later. So if you plan to grow, it may be reasonable to get the free service for a while, knowing you'll have to migrate when you become popular. But in the long run, you get what you pay for and you may need to pay for what you want.
Your Frugal, Money Saving Websites and Forums a Great Resource for Free Stuff In any economy, it is essential to save money and therefore any way there is to get free stuff is a good way. Many pages online offer help, advice and even coupons on how to save money and be frugal. These websites offer coupons to reduce the grocery or department store bill, send out monthly newsletter with the best moneysaving tips and even direct their visitors to free stuff. Many bigger companies, manufacturers of everyday household items and restaurants offer coupons for reduced price or sometimes free products. Visiting every month all the different manufacturers? web pages can be very lengthy and proves to be not very efficient. But by visiting one of the sites that cumulate all that information into their web pages, one can save enormous amounts of time and additionally save dollars when shopping. Essentially, when looking for web pages that offer grocery coupons, links to free products and more it is important to make sure that a trustworthy site is entered. On the Internet, viruses and identity theft are a great concern. Of course, many of these online coupon resources require signing up, but it always depends on the information they ask to determine whether a page is fraud or not. In general such pages should not ask for social security numbers, credit card numbers or other account information. They may ask for name, age, telephone number and address. Signing up to one of these wonderful money saving pages is quick and easy. Many of these web pages also offer coupon printers so that the barcode on coupons gets printed legible for the store scanner. Some of the coupons and rebates found on those pages will help the shopper to free products or credit on a store card so that the shopper is able to receive free products at the next shopping trip. There are pages that even offer state customized advice. These pages offer a list of coupons, free products and special offers from certain stores close to the location that was picked as home location. This function offers shoppers the opportunity to exactly know where they are able to get free or reduced products close to home and shoppers do not have to do a lengthy search to find out which stores will accept certain deals and coupons. Some of the pages also offer forums, where other shoppers will post advice or deals that they saw in the area. This is often a great tool to save, since stores will have a reduced sale, a clearance sale after a certain holiday and other shoppers will post where they saw great deals. This way whoever is subscribed to receive alerts from the forum gets to know where great seasonal or short-term deals due to promotions and clearances can be found. The more pages a shopper is a part of, the more deals can be found and the more money can be saved. Money savers are everywhere and with little effort shoppers can save money for college funds, vacations funds or just to have some money for fun. When looking to reduce monthly spending and still trying to stay at a certain standard of living, online resources can be used to just do that. There are many companies, that will offer free trial sizes or regular sizes of new or improved products and to find out about such deals, a subscription to one of the moneysaving websites can help shoppers to more of these free products. It is easy to save money, and the more experienced a shopper gets and the more a shopper learns about saving money with these websites, the more will actually be saved. Free Webhosting Resources for the Intrepid Net Newbie Web hosting is the new, big invention for anybody and anyone. Web hosting, having a web page on the Internet is not only a thing of big company and computer hobbyists anymore; it belongs to many parts of life nowadays. Whether it is a private page for family members and friends or open to everybody, many people aspire to have their own web page. Having an own web page can cost money and since money is something that everybody is short of nowadays, saving money and still having a own web page is the way to go. There are many resources on the Internet that can help one to a free web page. Some of the bigger web-hosting providers offer free limited size web pages to any private party. These pages are financed in several ways. One is through he bigger companies that pay for their pages and this service is such a small off spin that it can be fit in the budget. Another big way, the one that many free Internet and homepage providers offer is built in advertisement. The web page essentially has a header. In this header, different advertisements roll across. This way, the web hosting is paid by whoever is advertising on the web page. These wonderful free online web page providers also offer quick and easy software to create a web page. The days when one had to know how to program a web page in HTML is over. Hyper Text only needs to be known by serious web page designers who work to create the homepages of companies and sports giants. For the everyday homepage with a few links, using one of the built in software can create a few pictures, some text and some other fun gadgets. These programs are usually available on the main page of the web hosting provider and do not have to be downloaded. They run on the server. This software also come with easy getting started guides so that even the person who knows not much about web pages, but a little bit about the PC can create a web page. Web pages for the general public are getting more and more popular. Some companies that are looking for young and innovative employees will actually expect you to have an e-portfolio, a résumé or a good online web page. They judge by these e-portfolios. So when someone decides to tackle his or her first own web page it is important to think about the content first. One never knows who might actually be checking out the web page. Displaying Photos from old drinking parties might not be the best choice, while a résumé and work or private accomplishments might be the better choice. To find one of the free web hosting resource sites, anybody can just type free web pages or home pages or web hosting into anyone of the popular Internet search engine and a dozen different offers will pop up on the screen. By the way, if one does not want to use a provider that displays advertisement on the web page, a tech savvy person is able to use his or her own PC as a server if it is connected to the internet. There are programs out there, that will turn a PC into a Server and this web hosting resource is just as free as the online offers from big companies, but it has the advantage that it is free of any annoying advertisements. Whichever version is chosen, it is always important to be careful on the Internet. There are fraudulent pages, viruses and more that can take the fun out of web hosting and the first own web page. Always checking for the credentials of a web page is one safe way to stay clear of danger on the Internet. |