Free Webhosting

Using free web hosting services

There are plenty of free web hosting services available, and many small firms take advantage of free hosting for their business website.

If you are considering using a free web hosting service, there are potential pitfalls that you should be aware of before signing up to a specific provider.

Things you need to bear in mind include:

1. Limited bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth you will need relates to the number of visitors accessing your site and the number of pages and/or images being downloaded from it. Free web hosting services may only offer a limited amount of bandwidth, which could have an impact on the performance of your site.

2. Pop-up adverts. Getting something for free often means that advertisements are tied in with the deal. The hosting provider may insist that you publish adverts on your site, and this could be a source of irritation for visitors.

3. Reliability. It's good practice to check your chosen hosting provider's 'uptime' - the amount of time their hosting services have been available. This should consistently be close to 100%.

4. Additional support services. You'll need to decide whether you need 24-hour customer service or any additional features such as security backups or real-time statistics, and check if these are available in the package.

In addition, if you don't have your own domain name and instead have your site's name 'tagged on' to the end of your host's domain name, there can be problems with customers remembering your website's address.

The latest UK reliability statistics for web hosting providers can be viewed at the Webhosting.Info portal. You can also check out the Internet Service Providers Associationfor general information about the issues to consider when choosing a web hosting service.

Finally, Web Hosting Magazine has a US slant, but offers topical news and reviews of international web hosts.