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Free web hosting is available from a number of places on the Internet. These web hosts offer people the opportunity to have their own website but without all the costs that go with paying for hosting. While free web hosting is certainly very attractive, there are serious limitations associated with free web hosting in contrast to paid web hosting.

 

Free web hosting is a web hosting service that is free but which is often advertisement driven and supported. Free web hosts will usually provide a client with a sub domain (yoursite.hostname.com) or a directory (www.hostname.com/yoursite) rather than a unique domain name. For most people that simply want to have their own website on the Internet, this usually quite adequate but for a business this is hardly an option.

 

Despite the moniker, free web hosting does cost something. Web hosting companies have to cover the costs of all the websites they are hosting for free and the majority of free web hosting companies do this with advertising. Banner advertisements on a client’s website are often used as they tend to be non-intrusive and effective. Other advertisements include pop-up windows and Google AdWords. While these advertisements tend to be non-competitive it is not guaranteed – another reason business rarely uses free web hosting.

 

For the casual website owner free web hosting makes owning and maintaining a website simple and easy. Often free web hosting offers content management systems built into their servers to allow even complete amateurs to make a decent-looking site. These content management systems have their limits and clients may be forced to be content with a design that is not exactly what they were looking for.

 

Elements of design are not the only limitations associated with free web hosting, however. To keep costs down and to ensure that their servers are not overloaded, free web hosting services limit what their clients can upload in terms of size. Often the limitation is about 5 Mb. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it does limit the size of any pictures or files that can be made available on the website.

 

Technical support is also often lacking when it comes to free web hosting. With paid web hosting support is usually just a phone call or email away. Since you are paying for the service the hosting company is usually more than happy to help. With free web hosting, however, getting assistance for technical problems may take forever if there even is any real support in the first place. Most of the time it is up to the client to try and sort out whatever problem they have on their website with nothing more than a FAQ to help them find a solution.

 

Free web hosting is useful to those that simply want a small site on the Internet as a hobby or to cure their boredom. Free web hosting services make it quick and easy to load a small site onto the net to help you share your world with the web. Businesses and other serious Internet users on the other hand are better off with paid web hosting.

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