Free web hosting
Free web hosting is often ad-supported hosting, although with the low rates earned by general ads, it is usually the “bait” to lure people who might eventually upgrade to more powerful paid plans.
Ad-free paid hosting has become so inexpensive, that any for-profit site (and many non-profit sites) can justify the hosting & domain costs associated with having a more professional presence.
Free web hosts are not very reliable, although there may be a few exceptions. If the host is making money from banner ads, then they likely will stay in business, provided someone doesn’t abuse their hosting with spam, hacking, etc., as often happens to new free web hosting companies with liberal signup policies.
Free web hosting is not recommended for businesses unless you can get domain hosting from an ad-free host that is very selective. Other reasons for using free hosting would be to learn the basics of website hosting or to try scripts you have written on different hosting environments.
Advantages & disadvantages of free web hosting
- (+) It is free. No costs for a domain name also.
- (-) Your URL will be YourChosenUserName.freeeeee.com or freeeeee.com/YourChosenUserName
- (-) Free hosts offer a lower bandwidth then paid hosts and a lot of them don’t offer features like PHP or ASP and databases.
- (-) Sometimes the free hosts cancel their free service and offer paid hosting only.
- (-) Your provider will include ads to your pages, sometimes popup windows.