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Every person who is considering starting a website on the Internet usually has many questions about the type of web hosting that would best suit their needs. Common issues include whether or not to go for low cost shared web hosting, cheap dedicated hosting – or to try the free route. For those who are just starting out with a new small business idea, free web hosting can be very tempting.

There are hundreds of “free” hosting plans offered by web hosting companies. The plans available run the gamut, and most offer more than sufficient means to try out an Internet business idea to see if it might take off into something viable that can become profitable.

It is important; however, to keep in mind the old adage, “Nothing in life is free.” The fact that you will not have to pay any money to have your website hosted may seem like a grand idea. However, what is not paid in cash may either cost you or your users in time, for example;with modified pages, including pop-ups, or other advertising. In addition, there will most likely be other technical web hosting restrictions imposed, such as space, bandwidth, or general accessibility.

How Free Web Hosting is Offered
Free website hosts often earn revenue through advertising, by putting up banners, pop-ups, or pop-unders ads on the web pages that are included in your free web hosting plan. While some free web hosting companies may not put ads on your web site, they may require you, as the webmaster, to click on certain banners from either in the control panel or the signup process. Other hosts may display banners in the file manager, in the hope that you will click on them.

There are some free web hosting plans that lure visitors by expecting that most will decide, at some point, to upgrade to a paid hosting plan with various incentives. There are some that may send a few occasional emails with ads, or that may sell your email address to other vendors. Another popular system for free web hosts is to require a certain number of “quality” forum postings, designed as a means to drive traffic so that more visitors view display ads.

Know What Your Goal Is
Before you even begin to research the many free web hosting plans available, it is most important that you know what your goal is for the website that you are considering to start.

The type of website and web hosting to be considered greatly depends upon the business goal that you have. In order to avoid the frustration that can come with a lack of results, take some time to really focus on the purpose of the website and what you would like to achieve by having it on the Internet.

For example, are you looking for a certain amount of users on your website? If that is the case, you will want to ensure that you understand the traffic restrictions, which may be imposed by website capacity from the free web host, and determine how easily website growth will be handled by the free website.

Knowing your goal and your audience is the basis of any successful business, from start-up, to small, medium and even very large enterprises. If you take a look at businesses that did not perform as desired, there is usually a situation where someone lacked the direction required in order to accomplish the goal at hand.

However, creativity has often been the spark for many “happy accidents” – including inventions of all kinds. Therefore, sometimes it is not possible to have an entirely specific goal to strive towards achieving. But even the loosest idea can have a desired outcome. Once you’ve established the purpose of the website, you can begin to determine what is necessary in order for the website to operate in the way that it needs to, for the purpose intended.

Uses for Free Web Hosting
Some of the reasons for using free web hosting may include:

1) Learning the basics of website hosting. The obvious advantage of free web hosting services is price. You won’t have to incur the costs associated with registering a domain name or pay for hosting. A free web page can serve as a training site as you learn how you want your site to look, or test out new promotions.

2) Blogs have become very popular with the idea of the web as a social place to connect with others of similar interests. Increased blog popularity has been known to lead to new online business, so it could also be a springboard for new business ideas. Popular blogs are also usually in a position to sell advertising space, which is a great source of revenue from websites.

3) To try out new ideas and see how much public interest there may be.

4) For personal websites and hobbies, which can also lead to a small business ventures, should the website really take off.

5) To try scripts that you or someone on your team has developed on different web hosting environments.

There are also free services, like sitemeter.com, that will gather basic statistics on the web site and give you valuable information on visitors. You can find out where most of the visitors come from, what time of day they visit, and how many page views your website is receiving. All of this data can be used to determine if it is a good idea to put more time and money into the website as a viable business that has future growth potential.

Be Aware of Customary Web Hosting Costs
When investigating the idea of free web hosting, you will find that there are also a great number of commercial web hosts that offer free hosting services. Most of those offers include a catch, such as paying for a domain name or other service, and the amounts for those services can be excessive. This is why it is important to be aware of what the usual service costs are for web hosting and its associated services, before beginning the search for free web hosting. Armed with this information, it is much easier to determine what the best way to proceed may be for your particular purpose.

The general costs of web hosting plans and related expenses are also important to consider in connection with the goal of the website. As discussed in the “Know What Your Goal Is” section above, the goal behind the website is really what will determine what kind of web hosting is best for you.

While a free web hosting plan can work well in many situations, if you will have any kind of e-commerce function, you’ll almost certainly want to switch to a paid hosting plan at some point.

Free Web Hosting Reliability
Free web hosts usually earn money from banner ads or other revenue sources. As long as no one abuses the web hosting server with spam, hacking, or in some other way, most can be reliable enough to sign-up with.

However, if a free web host has an extremely liberal sign-up policy, and accepts just anyone who comes along, there can be a few drawbacks. With an automated instant activation and features such as PHP or CGI, some users may invariably try to find ways to abuse it, which can cause the free server to suddenly deal with a lot of downtime or to be very slow. It is best to try to do business with a very selective free web hosting company that only accepts quality web sites. Some ways to find out about those hosts will be discussed in the number 6 below: “Free Web Hosting Resources.”

Free Web Hosting Resources
The best place to research free web hosting is on a high traffic web hosting resource, such as www.freewebhostingtalk.com. On Free Web Hosting Talk, the users discuss their experiences with various web hosting firms, which can provide some very valuable data for use in determining how to proceed. There are also reviews of free web hosting services and many other useful sections on the website.

Some free web space directories add new free hosts on a weekly basis. If the website is updated often, it will usually delete quite a few of the offerings, for various reasons, as well. There are also some free hosting information websites that almost never update their web sites, which will be evident by the large percentage of dead and outdated links.
Free web hosts can change often, which makes it more difficult to keep the directories up-to-date. This is also why it is so important to thoroughly research each free web hosting company that is being considered, before signing up with any of them.

One of the larger free web space directories is Free Web Hosting, (www.free-webhosts.com), which includes a detailed list of over 500 free web hosting providers and a searchable database. The site is updated daily, and the advanced free web hosting search option can be very useful in helping to help the free hosting package with all the features needed, such as CGI, PHP, MySQL, ASP, SSI, Ruby on Rails, FrontPage server extensions, and even free Cpanel web hosting.
There are some other resources that include subcategories of freebie web sites, search engines, directories, and forums. Some of the smaller, more selective lists of free web hosts include:

Free Web space (www.free-webspace.org)
Best Free Web space (www.100-Best-Free-Webspace.com)
Free Hosting (www.Absolutely-Free-Hosting.com)

Your ISP may also offer some free web hosting to consider.

Additional Free Web Hosting Considerations
It is a good idea to choose a free hosting package with more features than are needed, in order to take into account unknown changes that your website may require. As the website grows in popularity, it can become necessary to make tweaks here and there.

As mentioned earlier, it is best to try to get accepted with a more selective free web host if possible. Take some time to look at other sites hosted on their server to see what kind of ads may be on your site. Check out the server speed (newer hosts are usually faster at first). Make sure to read the Terms of Service (TOS) and host features so that there is enough bandwidth for your web site. Look at the file size limit, and any scripting options that you might need.
If you don’t have your own domain name, it may be a good idea to use a free URL forwarding service so that you can change your web site’s host if needed down the line.

Read free web space reviews and ratings by other users on various free hosting directories, such as Free Web Hosting Talk: www.freewebhostingtalk.com.

Conclusion
The obvious advantage of free web hosting services is that there is often no initial cost, or worry about registering and renewing a domain name. A free web page can also be great as a training vehicle for you to learn about how you want the site to look, or to test out various promotion ideas. But for the serious online business person, a free website should really be looked at as temporary.

Even if you eventually decide to go with a paid web hosting plan, your free websites may be leveraged for great advantage. Web traffic can come from many different places, and free web hosting sites are no exception. You can also link from a free web hosting site to a paid one, which can cause some of the traffic to cross over.

As stated earlier, really focus on what the goal is for the website. The old management saying, “If you do not know where you are going, then any road will do”, can be especially important to remember when it comes to starting an online business.

For those who are adventurous or simply want to try out an idea, going with a free web hosting plan may be just the ticket. Since the goal for a web site may change or evolve as time passes, sometimes trying out a free web hosting plan may be the best bet. When a website evolves into something bigger, it may be possible to easily migrate to a larger website, or create a links to a new one.

If your research shows that there is a market for the product or service that you are interested in promoting, it may be best to go with a professionally run web hosting company that has all of the features you need within the pricing structure that you can afford. This way, once the website takes off, it will not be necessary to deal with the headache of migrating the website, (which sometimes is not even feasible) or having to start from scratch.

Whether or not you should go for a lower cost shared web hosting plan or a “free” plan is really something that only you can decide. It may also be a good idea to seek the counsel of a professional webmaster or Internet professional to determine how best to proceed with your online presence idea.

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