An internet service to make websites accessible via World Wide Web is known as the web hosting. It can be of two types, one is paid and the other is free. When we think of registering the presence of our business online, the first thing comes to our mind is free web hosting. It provides all the features and tools free of cost that are needed to create a website. It is basically run by some companies which provide free space on a server leased for use by an active user.
As we know that nothing is free in this world, so eventually we get web hosting on the cost of some risk. We have to pay in the form of risk for not paying monthly hosting bill. Let us get to know about the risk included in free hosting.
#1 Frequent Downtime
Downtime is a period of your website’s inaccessibility in each month. As your website is run on a server which is owned by some company, it faces a number of problems that cause your website to experience downtime. The biggest reason of your website’s downtime is an overcrowded server. It results in website’s inaccessibility because of the heavy load on the server. Audience can’t access your website due to heavy load unless if someone tries to visit your site directly.
#2 Uncertainty
Uncertainty is the second name of death. Free hosting can die at any time. As you are not the owner, free hosting providers can close their free services any time. Hence a huge fear of uncertainty is involved in it. Of course the service providers notify you if anything like this happens, but this is still of no use because you can’t do anything for this. Not only this, you can’t even redirect old site links if service providers close their services completely.
#3 Sharing Involves Bugs
As you are not the real owner of the server, service provider shares it with thousands of other sites. Sharing is not so good here. If any one of those sites has a bug and crash then it can affect your site too. Your site always faces a fear of being affected by the bugs in the process of sharing a server with more websites. Of course this can be fixed but it is not an easy task, it takes long time to fix the issues.
#4 Limited Resources
Free hosting never provides unlimited resources. If it is free, it comes with some limit to use its resources. You can’t increase the space given on a server for your website. You have to manage in the limited space and also the layouts given to design your website are limited by the company terms & conditions. This is the biggest risk of your website which can hinder your site’s growth as it needs unlimited resources according to the change in preferences with time.
#5 Unsafe
Safety is the first and for most thing for a website to run exclusively. Free web hosting includes the risk where your website is unsafe because it doesn’t provide security plans. If you own a website with paid hosting, you can buy security also but here you can’t buy it for your website. If your content is used by any other website, you can’t claim your copyright on it.
#6 Hidden Costs of Growth
Free web hosting is free of cost to use a space on a server but if you want growth of your website and want organic traffic on it, you have to buy promotion plans. You have to advertise your website by paying money for the advertisement. Being called as free, it is not fully free! It includes the risk of hidden cost that is much needed for the proper growth of a website.
#7 Loss of Site Ownership & Control
Last but not the least, a risk of loss of ownership comes with free web hosting. you don’t own the site’ is always clearly written in the terms & conditions. It is always up to the service providers what they do with their server. Moreover, you can’t control anything, it is also done by them.
Bottom Line
These are some risks that are included in free web hosting but still it is known as the easiest form of web hosting because of its free services. Free web hosting can be an option for beginners to learn about a website and want to own a website, but it will not be the choice of experienced webmasters. Actually, you can now own a web hosting package at very cheap prices that still have all the necessary features for your website. Some hosting providers currently providing a web hosting plan just starting at $1/month with free domain included, like GoDaddy – 1and1, are the very good choices for a beginer.
