Free Hosting - A Real Bargain?

Francisco Aloy

With the availability of many free hosting offers so prevalent on the Internet, are they the bargain they seem to be?

I must admit the offer of free hosting does have major appeal however, rarely is something of value given away for nothing. At first glance, free hosting sounds like a good deal! Upon closer inspection, you'll find close to 100% of them not suitable for a business website at all.

Before getting one of the free hosting packages, the person needs to have a specific idea what the website is going to be used for. Is it personal or for business?

If it's a personal website that's going to be used to post the family newsletter, photographs and so on, it's a perfectly good use of one. On the other hand, if it's a website built for commercial purposes, the free hosting packages are of limited utility to a business operation.

Most of the well documented opposition to free websites invariably mentions the use of very long URL's as one of the main examples but there are more fundamental reasons you shouldn't ever use a free website as your main business website.

Most business websites will need advanced mail handling and script hosting capabilities not offered by the free web hosting accounts. As your business grows and you realize the need for the above, your step onto the next business level is severely hampered.

These are services most Internet businesses need that are not provided by free hosting packages:

CGI Scripting PHP Scripting Autoresponders MySQL Databases

On account of the lack of scripting support you'll find many of the tools of eCommerce will not function on your free website, such as: shopping cart software and order tracking, javascripts, to name a few.

If at a later stage of development you decide to order some of the above support items "a la carte," you'll find out the outrageous cost of them...so much for a free hosting account!

All the above shouldn't imply there are no legitimate business uses for a free hosting account, there are! They can be used for hosting pages that link back to your main website, for re-directed URL's, for hosting any kind of web page that doesn't need any of the advanced support options of your main business website.

They can also be used for showcasing individual products contained within your main website with a link back to your landing page. They can increase your SE ranking if they are well designed with tight, relevant copy that goes well with your main website. Quality and accuracy do have their payoff!

Another important, and often erroneous point, is that it will help your main website have a wider appeal to many of the SE's because of the incoming links. However, the incoming links from free hosting accounts are not considered quality links by the SE's.

Used with insight and vision, free hosting services can ad value to your web operation. The main point to keep in mind is that the same care and preparation given to your main website should also be given to your free websites. The quality of the writing and production should be to help your main website, not to detract from it.

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by Francisco Aloy

(C)2004 Francisco Aloy ============================================== Agreement reminder, not part of the article: Please include my working hyperlink in the resource box. Remove paragraph before posting.

Francisco Aloy is the author of "Yes, I Want to Start My Internet Business Without Being SCAMMED!." He has an online business catering to the needs of the Newbie Net Entrepreneur. For more website building info AND a Business Opportunity, visit our Kiosk section at http://www.newbie-business-guide.com/website_building.html

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