Choosing a website hosting company is one of the most important decisions one can make while building a website. If you have already started your research you will know there is a wide assortments of hosting packages and services available that may leave you confused if you are a newcomer.
If you are just starting your online journey, then a free web host may be the perfect solution.
In this short guide we have set out 10 tips to help you choose a free web host, but first why would you want to choose a free web hosting company?
Why Free Web Host?
With the emergence of cheap web hosting services, free web hosting is hardly a big step away further for individuals or businesses. There are a number of web hosting companies that offer free set-up, free website domain registrations, huge bandwidth, multiple domain hosting, and hundreds of email accounts under one account along with disk space ranging from – 500MB to 10 GB; all for free!
So when you are offered free hosting in addition to the benefits, why not take it.
The catch is, free web hosting is often free now, pay later. And by pay later, this usually means that after the first year of free service, the host will start to charge fees. For some this may sound sneaky, but the truth is that free web hosts are perfect for newbies as it gives one a full year to test out the service and then decide later whether they want to stay on board.
So the real issue is not whether free web hosting is right for you, but more about how to choose a free web hosting company.
Choosing the Right Free Web Host
Tip 1- Availability means reliability
This is a technical saying used in the industry for reliability. When picking a free web host provider, make sure you are not compromising on the availability of support. Many times when you get something for free, you’ve compromised on a number of aspects. When you are assured with the availability of the company, you can be assured that your website will stay live and won’t fail because of errors on the server or be taken offline for long spans during maintenance.
Tip 2- Understand your hosting needs
Whether you are looking for free or paid web host, the first thing you should consider are your hosting needs. What type of site do you want to create? What are your technical requirements? How much monthly traffic do you expect from the site, etc.? Before you start shopping for web hosts, think about your basic needs and if a free web host is able to cater for your needs. Sit down and outline what are your needs are from a web host. If you think that a free web host can accomplish your needs, well, it’s worth checking them out!
Tip 3- Customer Support and Uptime
Many newbies to web hosting rarely give much thought to customer support, especially when they get web hosting for free. So, when something goes wrong, they blame the ‘FREE’ thing. So, when getting free web hosting, choose one that offers a toll-free telephone and email support service. Make sure they are offering ‘just-in-case’ measures in order to limit email and website downtime to minimal. These measures can include an onsite backup power supply, redundant hardware and network configurations, 24/7 network and server monitoring. Although, you might not understand the complexity and technicalities associated with these, make sure your free web hosting provider has listed these traits on their website. If not, ask them.
Tip 4- Free Email
When choosing a free web hosting provider, ensure they offer email services to set up email accounts from your domain name. Along with a webmail interface, the email should also include SMTP and POP3 access, allowing you to set up and access your domain emails using your hand-held devices.
Tip 5- Bandwidth and Disk Space
Bandwidth refers to the amount of space needed to access and leave a website. Here, Access denotes every time a visitor types the name of your website in his browser and Leave signifies every time a visitor receives something from the website like listening to an audio clip, downloading a file or viewing a picture. Let’s say your site has lots of photographs or graphics then you’ll need higher bandwidth and more storage space. When you choose a free web host provider, they will provide you with some amount of storage space which is used for storing text, videos, images, website files etc that you can be used for your website. Make sure you space requirements are matched by your free web host.
Tip 6- FTP and Website Creator
There are a number of free web hosting providers that offer a free website creating app where you can easily create your own website by choosing a template or adding your own images and text. FTP refers to File Transfer Protocol. This protocol allows you to transfer your web files from a PC to your free web hosting server. It makes it easy to upload your completed web files from your PC to the server of your service provider. Also, you can download your files from your web hosting server back to your PC. When choosing a free web hosting provider, remember, it should offer you round the clock unrestricted access to FTP.
Tip 7- Ad’s on the Page
Okay remember whatever you get for free often has some hidden charges and if in case you didn’t pay for those hidden charges, the free web hosting service provider will recover them from you through advertising. Although, posting ads is uncommon, there are some free web hosts who do this exclusively. So, before you choose a free web hosting provider, clear all your doubts. Ask them about hidden charges if any. This will surely help you to avoid any fuss later on.
Tip 8- Features of Control Panel
When you opt for the services of a free web hosting provider, make sure they provide you with the best control panel features. These features are a number of free script auto-installer, web templates, hotlink protection, a C-panel, multi-language support, IP deny-manager, and web-based file manager. This is one of the most important things you should keep in mind when attaining services from a free web hosting service provider. If they provide you all the above services, grab them for your hosting needs today!
Tip 9- Security
Web security is one of the most important things you should keep in mind when choosing a free web hosting provider. Companies that provide free hosting services usually don’t bother about providing security. So, this is also one of the important things you should keep in mind. When you choose a free web host provider, make sure they are providing protection to your website. Ensure your web host provider offers intrusion protection, a strong firewall, and monitoring to protect against malware. Also, the host you choose should provide you with a backup service so if your site is taken offline, you can easily restore it quickly, without any hassle.
Tip 10- Ease to use SSL
SSL is a small software security feature that allows websites to encrypt data sent from the browsers of the user to your server. Sites that have it will have an address that starts with HTTPS rather than HTTP. If your free hosting provider provides you with a website that takes personal information from its customers, then all you need is an SSL certificate, especially after Google has warned its customers that sites without https are simply not secure. So, when picking a free web hosting provider, look for one that provides SSL certificate. Make sure to check it with the provider before signing up!
Conclusion
In the nutshell, if you are a newbie, then starting with a free web hosting account may be a no-brainer. With the right free web hosting provider you should easily be able to upgrade to a VPS or any dedicated hosting later on when your site starts getting bigger. If you are looking for a reliable web host that can offer you all the above things, contact 000webhost.com. Whether it is an enterprise-class system or a personal website, 000webhost.com can provide the best hosting for your needs.
