Choosing a Free Web Hosting Service
The rate at which people are turning to the Internet and making web sites for a variety of reasons – is increasing rapidly. With that said, choosing a web hosting service that is suitable to their needs is very important. There are tens of thousands of web hosting companies that offer several types of web hosting services. So how does one go about deciding – which one to choose? This post is very basic, for beginners and not for advanced web masters.
Usually, a lot of starters out there try to look for a web hosting service that is offered without any cost. While it is okay to look for a free web host, you must bear in mind that there are significant limitations – especially if you’re planning on developing a dynamic web site. Most free web hosts have advertising banners/pop-ups enabled on your page and would not offer databases.
So, free web hosting is only good if you are planning to host a simple static web site. On the flip side, if you are willing to pay - you can get the best packages for as low as $3/month. Anyway, in this post – I am going to outline the basic points to consider, when looking at free web hosting services.
There are four primary points to consider while comparing free web hosting services: “amount of space”, “file size and upload limits”, “FTP access” and “server reliability”.
The most important thing to consider when choosing a free web host is the amount of space allocated by the hosting service for your site. This is important as more space you have for your web site, the better, as you can upload files and get more flexibility. Typically, these free hosting services offer only 10 MB (or up to 25 MB) of space and you have to think if this is enough for all your pictures, videos, and other thingamajigs you want to put in your web site.
The second consideration has to be given to server reliability. I hate clicking on a link that takes me to a page; which says “server error” or takes ages to load. Nowadays, access to information in the fastest time possible plays a very important role - as everyone prefers instant access to information.
Another consideration to make is the limitation that the web hosting service sets, with respect to the types and sizes of the files that will be uploaded for your web site. Free hosts usually put a limit on this since their services are shared with other people who also need free web hosting like you. But there are some hosts that will give you enough freedom to create a presentable web page. So it’s just a matter of research on your part to find these free web hosting service providers.
FTP access is usually offered by almost all free web hosting providers, these days. This is very useful for beginners as you just choose the files as if you were just attaching them to your email and uploading it to your web site. If you are just a beginner, choosing a web host with FTP access will greatly work to your advantage.
There are, of course, other considerations to make when choosing a free web host but the four considerations mentioned above will give you the most basic criteria for comparison between free web hosting services. In my next post, I’ll talk about shared (paid) hosting providers and highlight the top two providers that I have worked with, in the last five years.
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