There’s that well used expression that insists that nothing worth having comes easy, but that can’t be extended to apply to getting something for free. There are plenty of things that are worth having that may come to be acquired without any expenditure attached to them, and and inheritances can be one of many darn good examples of that. However, it’s usually the case that if something is free to you and you haven’t won it or some type of similar situation then usually there’s a reason it is available for no charge. It’s not to suggest there’s no quality to it, but more often than not there’s just not a lot of real value to whatever it is that’s free.
We’re a Canadian web hosting provider here, and we can concur here and say that for cost-effective web hosting you might want to pause before choosing free options.
The built-in value proposition in free really is absolute, but where it becomes cloudy is in the way it might fall apart if your needs aren’t being met. And in this instance the needs will be for your website and if it’s making your business visible to customers online then there almost always are going to be inflexible needs attached to it. Free website hosting might be a good fit for someone who’s selling their own artwork on the website or something similar, but even then it may come up short.
Web hosting providers in Canada will almost always have the most bare-boned of shared hosting arrangements made available as their free website hosting option, and it may well end up meaning that your online shop isn’t actually open along the information superhighway.
This is why people who have a website now and are ready to get web hosting for the first time are urged to give more thought to real website hosting solutions. More thought than they might be inclined to in a lot of cases, and another part of why that’s recommended is because while basic shared web hosting plans aren’t free they also don’t cost a whole lot either and the level-up with reliability you get from a paid shared website hosting plan means there may well be more applicable value to you if you choose that type of web hosting.
We do get that free hosting for websites is always going to sound plenty appealing to people, but we’ve also been in this business long enough to know that quite often people who choose that option end up moving to a paid web hosting option before long.
There are all sorts of reasons why that’s the case, and we’ll talk about some of them here as this week’s blog entry will cover 10 reason why you should think twice about free website hosting. We stress that double for anyone with a website that will be for their business, or any other type of venture where the site is going to be a key resource for making interested individuals aware of what you have and what you are doing and making available to people. We’re not going to try to sway you away from going with free web hosting, but only to make you aware of what you may end up finding out for yourself down the road. So let’s get right into it.
Past the Shine
For most people the measure of whether their package qualifies as cost-effective web hosting is if it delivering new clients and promoting the growth of the business and better visibility along with that. Right off the bat we can tell you that with free website hosting it’s quite unlikely that your site will rank well, even if you believe it to be SEO-optimized. Those who are just getting started online will often see free website hosting as an easy, no-cost way to launch their site. The idea of not having to pay anything for it may have them jumping at the opportunity. However, as is nearly always the case you get what you pay for and there are often some very negative aspects that are tradeoffs you’ll need to accept if you opt to go with free hosting.
In fact, it may not be cost-effective web hosting at all and may actually cost you more in the long run. You may not know it now, but it can be the case that paying for your hosting is going to have you and your website in a much better situation. Let’s look at the most critical reasons why free hosting often comes up short for people.
Limited Resources & Capabilities
Far and away the biggest downside to free hosting is the way you’ll have big-time limits to the resources made available to you. This can be anything from restricted storage space to limits on the amount of bandwidth that will be allocated for your site. Quite often free hosting is unable to keep up with the basic needs of a small personal website, and for a business one it usually won’t even come close to providing the basics of what is needed for the site. Want to upload high-quality images, videos, or any interactive features? Probably not going to happen.
Paid web hosting is going to be better because you get access to ample storage, fast processing power, and you site will be better set up to handle traffic spikes if you’re fortunate enough to experience them. Free hosting is known to limit a website's growth and functionality, and is never going to be conducive to real website hosting solutions.
Poor Performance and Slow Speeds
The speed with which website pages load for visitors needs to be at least relatively fast for two reasons. The first will be because it will please those visitors and they’re more likely to stay on the website if they’re impatient for whatever reason. But the second reason is likely more important if your priority is SEO and having your site rank higher. Faster website speeds improve search engine rankings and with free hosting what usually happens is that the providers tend to overload their servers with thousands of websites. This results in very slow load times.
Studies show that if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, many users will abandon it. Going with free hosting may means you have would-be customers leave the site and take their business elsewhere, and your search engine rankings for the site may also go down too.
Lack of Control Over The Site
Try conceptualizing free hosting for a website as building a house on another owner’s property. That’s essentially what you’re doing when choosing not to pay for web hosting. It often means little to no control over key aspects of your website and examples can be being restricted from customizing your domain name or having the provider force you to use their branding. There may also be limitations to the tools and software you can use.
Unwanted Advertisements
Don’t like the idea of having ads placed on your site without your approval? Then that’s another reason why this isn’t the way to go with cost-effective web hosting. You’re not going to have any say in what ads are displayed, and it won’t be you who is earning any revenue from them. These types of ads cheapen your website’s appearance, and in some instances they may also drive traffic away. A site that is cluttered with ads doesn’t inspired trust in people, and often they will be ads for products or services you don’t endorse.
Lacking Customer Support
Another big deterrent for people considering free hosting is that with these services you won’t have anywhere near the same level of customer support. In the event the site goes down or you experience technical issues you will need to figure out the fix for that on your own. For real website hosting solutions there is always going to be a need for available customer support, unless you’re a fully capable webmaster on your own. Few people are like that, and 95+% of them are going to need to access support if there’s a problem.
Security Risks
Security should be a top priority for any website owner, but free hosting services often come with significant risks. Since free hosts are managing thousands of websites on the same server, the likelihood of a security breach increases.
Free hosting providers usually don’t offer strong security features like SSL certificates, firewalls, or regular backups. This leaves your site vulnerable to hacking attempts, malware, and other cyber threats. If your site gets hacked or compromised, you could lose everything without a proper backup system in place.
Limited Scalability
The best-case scenario for any business owner is to see their website getting ever-growing levels of traffic and contributing to the growth of the business. It’s always best when a site gains traction, but if that site is hosted for free then limited bandwidth availability and other constraints may put an end to the benefits of all that increased traffic and new customer inflow.
The user’s ability to scale and grow is highly restricted and in many instances they are forced to move their website to a paid hosting provider. It’s best to go with a better web hosting plan to begin with and avoid this scenario.
Lack of Professionalism
These days the first point of contact between you and potential customers or readers is going to be your website, and maybe social media platforms to a lesser extent. A site that looks amateurish or runs poorly is probably going to put you and your business in a less favourable light. With free website hosting you will usually find generic, unprofessional websites that lack the tools and design options needed to make a strong impression. You may also find that you’re not able to register a domain name like you would want to. Many times you’ll need to included the providers name in the suffix of your domain name if you are on a free plan from them.
SEO Limitations
We touched on this already, but we’ll stress again that your site’s SEO is probably going to suffer if you choose to go with any free alternative when it comes to your web hosting. There is also going to be the possibility of slow load times, frequent downtime, and a lack of control over your site's structure. You’re likely going to have difficulty optimizing your site for search engines. Consider as well that free hosting services often fail to provide SEO tools or analytics that help you monitor your site’s performance and improve your rankings.
Data Loss & Lack of Backup Options
We will conclude here by stressing the risks of data loss with this type of web hosting. Most free hosting services won’t be providing automatic backups, which means that if something like a server crash or a hacking attempt occurs it is very possible you’ll lose all your data.
Paid hosting providers are better for cost-effective web hosting because they will include regular and automated data backups for paying customers. This means that if anything goes wrong your site can be reliably restored to its previous state. Even the best free web hosting plan won’t provide you with this data backup assurance and it’s not something you want to find out about the hard way if some type of incident means you lose valuable data for your website.
