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Should
You Choose Free
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There are plenty of hosting companies that provide free web hosting, so why bother paying for it?
The old adage 'You get what you pay for' is just as valid in the electronic age as it was 100 years ago.
In web hosting, when you pay nothing you sometimes end up with
nothing...and a whole lot of heartache :-)
Most free web hosts offer limited services. Even though they are not charging you to host your website, they still need to make money. They often do this by placing advertising on your
site which competes directly with any products or services
you are trying to sell yourself.
Plus, you probably won't have any control over what kind of ads show up –
you could have ads for the exact same product from a
different vendor showing right next to yours...it's a matter of take it or leave
it and for business websites it's usually best to 'leave
it'.
In addition, free hosts may restrict the content you place on your site.
You may not be allowed to sell things or have certain content such as videos or music.
Finally, your web site could simply disappear overnight. New companies that offer free hosting pop up almost every day, but they also vanish with astonishing regularity.
When your hosting company vanishes, your web site goes with it and any visitor traffic or search engine position advantage you had will also be gone.
You must have a reliable web host...
If you are serious about having a web site you need to use a reliable web host.
Prices range considerably – some companies offer rates as low as $2 a month while others charge $60 or more.
Be careful, though. High rates don't always translate as high service. Some of the lower priced hosts offer reliable, stable environments that allow your website to be accessed day in day out for years.
There are also several all-in-one web hosting companies which offer you complete packages that are very good value for money...we'll look at those in detail later.
Generally speaking the more you pay for web hosting the more you get...
Higher rates should bring you more storage space, more bandwidth to handle Internet traffic, and more services such as databases, email accounts, mass mailers, and the ability to add custom scripts.
Higher rates can also mean better technical service if you have problems with your website.
All in all, if you plan to build a long term business on the Internet, paid web hosting is a much better choice that getting it for free...
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