You can start a website for free with a free web hosting company. However, free web hosting comes with a price tag – server maintenance fees. Hence, the companies providing free web hosting need to find a way to pay the bills. There are several strategies that such companies employ to cover their costs, some of which are deplorable and unethical.
Limitations of free web hosting
Free web hosting is often limited by a large bandwidth limit. This can negatively impact your website’s loading speed. Slow loading times are not only frustrating for your site visitors, but can also affect your rankings. The more media elements your website has, the more bandwidth it will need. This can make your site load slowly, especially during rush hours.
Another downside of free web hosting is that it is not a good choice for businesses who need fast site setup and quality support. Unless you plan on growing your business in the near future or expect to have high traffic, free web hosting is not a good option. Also, free web hosting plans typically come with advertisements. Those ads are not directly related to your website, so they may contain advertisements for competitors. In these cases, your website may lose customers to those competitors.
As the name implies, free web hosting has several restrictions, including limited disk space, bandwidth, and advertisements. These limitations will likely result in your site outgrowing the free plan in no time. Furthermore, free hosting services often have minimal customer support and a small knowledge base or help forum. You’ll also be limited in the number of pages you can create, and they won’t give you much flexibility.
Companies that offer free web hosting
Free web hosting companies typically make their money by displaying ads on your website, either their own or third-party ads. This may be annoying to some users, but it is possible to switch to a paid hosting plan and have no ads on your website. Also, if your site reaches a certain number of visitors, free hosting will throttle your bandwidth, which may cause your website to seize up.
The prices listed by free web hosting companies are not always accurate. The prices are often introductory and attached to a year-long contract, so they aren’t the regular rates. The regular price will likely be double or more than the intro rate, so be sure to check the price before signing up.
Free web hosting companies may be an excellent way to get started, but they should not be your only option. Free hosting usually comes with a range of limitations, including slow speeds, ineffective customer support, severe feature limitations, frequent downtime, and no stability. Regardless of the drawbacks, free hosting is still the best option for a beginner or someone trying out website building.
Website builders that offer free web hosting
If you are unsure of which website builder to use, there are a number of free options available. Website builders such as Wix, Jimdo, and Site123 are easy to use. All of these platforms offer basic website building capabilities and are compatible with mobile devices. They provide 500 MB of storage, HTTPS/SSL encryption, and features such as social media integration. The downside of free website builders is that they do not have the SEO capabilities that many paid website builders offer.
Weebly is another website builder that offers free web hosting and features one of the easiest drag and drop website builders available. With over 100 design templates, you can quickly customize your website without having to worry about writing a single line of code. It also has an advanced eCommerce platform, so you can sell both physical and digital goods.