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Beware of the Risks of Free Web Hosting
 Having
your website on a free web host can save you
money, but could it be costing you
customers? New research by Fasthosts web
hosting has shown that many small businesses
are unaware of the potential hidden costs
and problems of using a free web host.
One of the biggest problems of using a free
host is that your website name will often be
simply an addition to the host’s name: E.g.:
http://www.freewebhostdomainname.com/user/yourbusiness/.html
. This means your website is very difficult
to remember and looks unprofessional (most
experienced web users see businesses without
their own domain name as untrustworthy).
If you use free web hosting, you are likely
to suffer from at least a few of the
following problems, all of which can be
solved by using a paid-for host:
- Unreliable servers with frequent down
time.
- Low-priority bandwidth giving slow site
performance
- Small bandwidth allowances causing payment
to be required or worse still, the website
being shut down.
- No secure server space for enabling online
product orders.
- No backups for user files.
- No scripting support for features such as
drop down menus, dynamic text, etc.
- No out of hours support
- Difficulty being identified by search
engines.
- Adverts - the site owner often has no
control over the volume or content of these
adverts.
- Complicated and difficult to remember
website addresses.
The good news is that moving to paid web
hosting does not have to be expensive;
domain names are relatively cheap, and the
costs of reliable hosting has gone down
significantly in the last few years (good
quality hosting is available for less than
£150 a year). In fact, there are next to no
circumstances in which we would recommend
using a free web host to a small business.
Find out more in our article "How to Choose
the Right Web Host".
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