T
he web is an amazing thing. From enabling us to stay in touch with family across the world, to doing our weekly grocery shopping in just a few clicks of a mouse, it really has changed the way we live our lives. There are almost limitless ways to have your voice heard on the web - via social networks, forums, comments on articles, and so on - but having a platform of your very own from which to broadcast your message is always the best way to do things. This applies to individuals or businesses.
If you fall into one of these categories, and you want to launch your own site, the first thing you'll need is to find reliable hosting. There are hundreds of companies you can choose from, all of whom will provide you with a solid hosting service, but there are also quite a few companies that claim to offer completely free web hosting. These packages are naturally somewhat limited, but are any of them actually reliable enough to host a small website or blog over the long-term? Let's delve a little deeper and discover whether or not free hosting can ever be a reliable solution, or do you always get what you pay for?
Starting with the basics Before we can assess the reliability of a free hosting service, we need to decide on exactly what we'd like to host. From the off we can agree that a huge, constantly-updated site with thousands of images is always going to be too much for a free hosting account. We can also agree that a site that gets thousands of hits a day is going to cripple a free host quite quickly. For the purposes of this article, then, let's decide that we want to launch a simple WordPress blog; a personal blog with one or two pictures per post and only a small amount of traffic. We could also decide on a small website with a handful of pages, for a business or service for example.
The essentials
The first thing you'll want to check before settling on a free web host is whether or not they offer the right features to support the site you have in mind. In the case of our Wordpress example, the bare minimum you'll need is an SQL database.
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A great many free hosts offer no databases whatsoever, so that crosses them off the list instantly. You’ll also need to check details like the version of PHP the host runs. Some hosts will offer at least one SQL database, which is exactly what you need for a Wordpress installation. This may sound promising, but there are more issues that can crop up from free hosts, as we're about to see.
It's all about uptime One of the biggest obstacles to free hosting being a good solution is that they cannot guarantee any kind of uptime, at least the majority of them. For most people who want to run a blog or website, uptime is crucial. What point is there in having a site if it's down 50% of the time? Many paid hosting solutions offer guaranteed uptime percentages.
Importance of bandwidth To run a successful blog or website, you need visitors. And to accommodate visitors, you need bandwidth. Many
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free hosting solutions offer a small amount of bandwidth, but it usually tops out around 1GB. This is enough for a few hundred visitors per month. But if you want a site that caters to more, you'll have to cough up.
Say goodbye to support Because you're getting a free service, the hosting provider has absolutely no obligation to support your site. So if you have a lot of technical issues, or your site goes down randomly, you don't really have any options. Plus, it's tricky to back up a site on a free host as they usually don't have the same tools at your disposal.
The final word
The bottom line here all comes down to what you need your site to do. Want a fully-featured website that attracts thousands a month? You’d better pay for it. But if you want a simple WordPress blog with a couple of pictures and a weekly post, a free host could be ideal. It’ll get your views online without breaking the bank – just don’t forget to switch if you hit the big time.
P! Writer’s Bio: Olivia Lennox is a freelance writer based in London. She writes for a diverse range of people and organizations, from travel blogs to SEO company UK clients. 027
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