Free is a DIrty Word

Free is a Dirty word in Web Hosting

Is there anyone who is not attracted to the word “free?” People rush for anything from grocery coupons to movie tickets, from makeup samples to iPods, and even web hosting as long as it’s free.


Hosting companies allow webmasters to host their website content on company’s servers and make it accessible to people through the internet. There are many types of web hosting service but they are mainly be classified into two categories : free and paid hosting.


Why do you think there are so many free hosting companies competing with each other? 

How do they benefit from giving away their hosting free?

In order to understand the functioning of a free web hosting company better, it helps to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages first.


Free Web Hosting

The web host provides server space to users without charging them a fee, and users upload their website content to this space. This is a good option for new marketers as these free hosts are newbie-friendly and the process involved in uploading a website to their servers is usually pretty simple.


Is there a catch?


You gussed it. There is! 

While offering users the privilege of hosting their web pages for free, the hosting company retain the rights on these pages - or rather, your web pages - your content. 

Forced Advertising

The hosting company uses your web pages to advertise their services and products by placing banners, popunders or popup windows. As if this is not bad enough, some web hosts even impose restrictions on webmasters from using banner exchanges on their websites. There is nothing webmasters can do as this is a favor expected of them, if they wish to host their site for free.


There are some web hosts that require webmasters to click on banners during the sign up or in the control panel. One of the latest methods being adopted by free web hosting companies is the requirement for the webmasters to post in forums, in an attempt to populate their websites with visitors.


Low Bandwidth: Another issue is that of low bandwidth, which reflects in the time taken to load pages. We have all come across sites that take ages to open and it can be quite frustrating. This is exactly how it could be with a free web host. For people looking to improve their businesses, this factor alone could prove to be detrimental.

Unclear Terms and Conditions

The terms and conditions of some of these web hosts are not clear and even if you happen to find a web host that states that they do not advertise on the web pages, there is no saying that they will include that in the future.

Downtime and Lack of Support

Downtime is the time the server is down, resulting in inaccessibility of the web pages hosted on the server. This spells danger for a thriving or even a growing business. Webmasters are left biting their nails, waiting in anticipation as the support is really not great – well, it’s free after all.

Difficult to Move your content

Ok. You have had enought experience with the free hosting service and now would like to grow and shift to a paid hosting. So what would you do? You are stuck. The templates you used, which was provided by the host. making it difficutlt for you to change providers.


While free hosting is “free” in terms of money, websites lose more money in the long run because it limits the functioning of their business. Considering the advertising, low bandwidth, less web space, downtime, lack of proper support and other limitations, a business website is better off with a good paid web hosting company.


Then there are some companies that charge higher for domain names to compensate for the so-called “free” hosting they offer.

While there may be some genuine free web hosting companies but these are extremely rare. 

So in conclusion, unless you are new to the cyberworld, STAY away from free web hosting services. They do you more harm than good.