Free or paid web hosting?

Just finished your first website? So its the time to look for some hosting and make a choice. Your first qustion probably will be whether to choose free or paid hosting service. Lets have a look at some advantages and disadvantages of these solutions.

Free web hosting:
(+) Its for free. You dont need to pay for domain name.
(-) Your URL will be something like http://username.freehost.com or http://freehost.com/username. As I noticed above, the advantage is that you dont need to pay for domain. But note that if you move your website to another provider in the future you can loose some or all your traffic (there are some solutions how to solve this problem but it is not the point of this article).
(-) Your provider will probably include ads to your pages - usually 1 or 2 banners, sometimes popup windows. If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesnt allow it.
(-) Free hosts usually allow lower bandwith then paid hosts and a lot of them dont offer futures like PHP and MySQL.
(-) A lot of free hosts change their Terms and conditions during some time. If your free host offers hosting wihtout ads now, dont be surprised when banner or popup appears on your site in the future.
(-) Sometimes happens that free hosts cancel their free service and longer offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choises - pay them or loose your website.


Paid web hosting:
(+) You can host your own domain. If you decide to change the web hosting provider in the future, you easily transfer the domain to the new provider and dont loose your traffic.
(+) Most paid hosts offer 24/7 support via email or live chat and some of them provide toll-free phone support.
(+) You can expect better uptime then on free host. Some paid hosts offer uptime guarantee.
(+) Paid hosts usually offer enough disk space and bandwith. Futures like PHP and MySQL are standard. Even if you are not programmer you can download plenty of free PHP scripts from internet.
(-) Paid hosting coast money :o)


Before you make the decision if choose free or paid host you should answer this question: How big ambitions do I have with my website? If you are starting small personal page for your friends consist of a few *.html files then free host will be sufficient. In case you plan to run serious business website, need PHP, database and dont want ads on the site I recommend to look for quality paid host.

About the Author:
Petr Sejba runs Web Hosting Reviews ( http://webhostingtoplist.com ), a list of quality low cost hosting companies. For more information contact him at info@webhostingtoplist.com

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Here is my personal favorite webhosting company that offers 1 low payment for an entire lifetime hosting account. No monthly payments. Its almost as good as free hosting. www.1webhosting4life.com

What is Monthly Web Hosting Costing You?

Im going to be upfront with you. There’s something I think you should buy. By the end of this post, I think you might agree. I make a ton of websites. I have dozens of domain names and my need for web hosting is enormous. If you’re reading this blog because you love to create websites, I want to share with you the web host I use to do this all with, and the steal I got my hosting for...

Web hosting companies charge a monthly fee to host your files on their server. It can be as low as $4.95 a month and I’ve seen some as high as $29 a month and up for large packages. Cost usually determines which package you choose. The more you pay, the more you get (web space, domain names, bandwidth).

As your website grows it will require more space and bandwidth, and you’ll need to upgrade your services. If you’ve ever exceeded your bandwidth you know how frustrating it is to have to pay more because your website did what it was supposed to, and attracted more activity than you paid for.

Consider a lifetime web hosting company. You will receive a web hosting account with a one time fee only. Combine one payment lifetime hosting with unlimited features and you have a total winner. All of the features such as bandwidth, add on domain names, subdomains, MySQL databases with Fantastico (for quick blogs, forums, life support, sitebuilders) are unlimited.

This Web Hosting Company gives you everything a large monthly package gives you - for a one time fee. With 6GBs of space you’ll most likely never need to upgrade and never exceed your bandwidth, even with the highest traffic sites. Compare the difference between monthly hosting and lifetime hosting:

Let’s do a 3 Year Cost Comparison for the webhost that is Ranked #1 in Google right now (Fortune City)

Monthly Hosting at the lowest payment:
@ $4.95/month or $54.45/year – in 3 years will cost $163.35, plus domain name renewal (1^st year included $8.95 for year 2 and 3) for a total of $181.25

For a larger package most comparable
to the lifetime hosting package:
@ $29.95/month or $329.95/yr – in 3 years will cost $898.20, plus domain renewal ($8.95/year) for a total of $1007.75

Unlimited Lifetime Hosting
Current one time payment $114 + $6.99 for domain name you control = $120.99 upfront plus $6.99 yearly to renew your domain name. total = $134.97

WOW. Can you see the advantage of using this service in cost alone?

Check out the INSANE sale on web hosting. Currently $114 after $15 coupon. Offer can vanish at any time. Get in now before the price goes back up.

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