Why free web hosting can be BAD for your business

There are numerous websites around offering "free" web hosting, and if you are new to web hosting and are looking for a place to host your first website, they may at first glance seem attractive...

At first, your new free web site hosting account can seem ok, but this is due to the fact that you can't see BEHIND the scenes, you can't actually see what sort of server or server suite it is hosted on. You don't know at this stage if the server is actually a server in a genuine data centre with full security, fire protection systems, regular backups and a team of professionals monitoring it all 24/7.

While you can only see the front end you may never find out that your site is actually on an old PC in a teenager's bedroom. I was called out to fix a computer recently belonging to a young chap - he was hosting dozens of websites on his computer and he'd got a virus while playing online games on it - this brought all his "clients" hosting accounts down with his computer.

In a crisis, if your site goes down for any reason, would you rather explain the problem to a technician at the data centre? Or to a teenager's Mum? If you are an office employee tasked with your company's web hosting, how would you explain to your boss that your web host's Mum won't answer your calls?

(This might sound silly - but remember the teenager with the computer I had to fix?)

This is only the beginning of the problems with free hosting. Many times with free hosting, there is limited memory and bandwidth available for your account, in addition to frequent technical problems. Usually these problems arise because ALL services (FTP, Email, Control Panels, Web Service etc. etc. are all hosted on ONE machine instead of several dedicated servers as with a real hosting provider with data centre facilities.

Quite often when technical problems arise, you try to contact the web hosting provider and can't even find a real phone number on their website that will lead you to a human being that can answer your questions - ALWAYS check the contact details of ANY host - free or otherwise.

• Do they answer the phone readily?
• Will they answer questions even BEFORE you are hosted with them?
• Do they offer 24/7 support 365 days a year? And is it included in the price?

Many "free" hosting providers charge up to £1.50 per MINUTE for support calls - NOW do you see why free hosting can be expensive as well as bad for business? They don't care about quality of service - they make their money only when things are BAD!!! At £1.50 per minute...

None of the above means that ALL web site hosts offer inferior services, but it's something you have to consider carefully if it is not to cost you more in the long term, especially if you are launching an internet-based business and want web space that is going to be 100% reliable 24/7/365. At the end of the day, no matter how cheap or free it is, if your visitors keep finding your site is down then you will lose far more business than you will ever gain. As with the old saying - "there is no such thing as a free lunch".

If you are starting a new business, don't be tempted by free web hosting, it shows lack of confidence in both yourself and your business, and potential customers that bother to check will see you are using free hosting and will steer well clear - after all, if you have no confidence in your business, why should they?

Instead,  if you really need to watch the pennies at the start, look for a hosting provider that offers inexpensive "starter" hosting packages, with a full Control Panel system that will allow you to upgrade easily yourself if required later, when your needs have changed. On any decent hosting service you will have a Hosting Control Panel that will allow you to upgrade with just a couple of mouse clicks.

In time, as your online business grows, and your website grows, your needs will change, you may want extra features such as extra web space, increased bandwidth (more simultaneous visitors without slowing down your service), database integration for CMS (Content Management Systems) or the ability to have an interactive site with animation, music and videos etc. This is when your initial choice of hosting provider makes a big difference! Providing you chose a hosting provider with upgradeable hosting packages in the first place this will save you the horribly aggravating trouble of finding another web host and getting your domain name and all your files moved to a new provider when you need to upgrade to a higher specification package.

Some of the paid hosting providers even go the extra mile for their hosted clients... for example our own hosted clients not only get FREE 24/7 Telephone and Skype support for their hosting packages - we also give them free telephone/Skype support for all issues involving their PC's, such as Windows, Antivirus, Firewall, Outlook and Outlook Express problems too