The Dangers of Free Web Hosting

The wise adage – you get what you pay for – continues to hold true online. Although free web hosting may not cost you a penny, keep in mind that nothing in life is free. Free web hosting may not require you to pay monetarily, but you will indeed pay – in ways that are not beneficial to your website’s long-term success.

Free Web Hosting is Paid with Advertisements

Although free web hosting does not require you to pay – it does cost your website in the form of advertisements. After all, how else can the free web hosting company stay afloat and provide you with complimentary services? They monetize through advertisements – and your website and visitors will pay.

If you opt for free web hosting, your visitors will have to succumb to a plethora of ads. Whether a barrage of pop-up ads attack your visitor upon reaching the URL – or perhaps annoying, improper advertisements displayed all over your website – these experiences cause your visitors to leave quickly.

Thus, although you are saving money with free web hosting, you are really paying by losing traffic and long-term visitors.

Suffer a Strange Domain with Free Web Hosting

If you would like to enjoy the benefits of a regular URL, then this is one you will forgo with free web hosting. When you choose to use free web hosting, you are typically forced to select a strange sub-domain – filled with letters, numbers, and of course, the domain of the free web hosting company.

Needless to say, branding with a bizarre sub-domain does not bode well for the long-term success of your website. Not only will people not remember nor return to your website, but considering that internet users are very savvy, they will also know that you skimped on your hosting – meaning that you are not serious about your website.

Free Web Hosting Limits Your Bandwidth and Disk Space

Have you thought about featuring a multimedia player on your website, or hoped for large volumes of traffic? With free web hosting, you can forget about these ideas. The inherent business model of free web hosting means that they severely limit your bandwidth and disk space. Therefore, even if your website “takes off” despite all of the strange sub-domains and advertisements, the free web hosting will be unable to accommodate for the spike in traffic.

Security Flaws Abound with Free Web Hosting

Whereas not all free web hosting sites have poor reputations, there are many that are notorious for infecting users and visitors with malware and viruses. Clearly, this is no way to build a long-term website with regular visitors. If you are looking to create a flash-in-the-pan website, along with the management of very angry visitors infected with malware, then free web hosting may be right for you. However, more often than not, choosing a reputable web host for only $4.95 per month is the right option.