MUST READ TIPS ABOUT THE HOSTING INDUSTRY, AND HOW TO AVOID BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE...
Free Web Hosting Services.
is the most basic web hosting service that you can obtain. There are several
free hosting companies that are available on the internet. Free hosting services are usually financed by multiple
advertisements from the free webhost of your website.
Free web hosting services are extremely limited. If you get a free hosting service you will usually have ads on the top and the
bottom of your website. For people starting out on the internet, it may be the best option if you don't have a lot of traffic,
just need a small site, or don't need to have a professional web address.
The type of web domain that you receive when you get a free web hosting is usually a subdomain with the name that you pick
(yourname.webhost.com) or a name in a directory (www.webhost.com/yourname). For example, if the name of
your free host is freestanding.com, then your website domain address would be yourname.freestanding.com OR
www.freestanding.com/yourname. For any serious web presence, this type of web address looks very unprofessional.
If you are a novice, this is the type of account that might entice you but there are many shortcomings to free
web hosting, especially if you are looking for more options and flexibility on the account.
First, many free hosting accounts do not support database management or what you would call in simple terms, putting data
structures on the free web host side of their server. Databases are usually used for online data retrieval routines. Many of
these free web hosting sites do not support a common package called mySQL which allows you to program queries into your web
sites. They are also very limited with disk space and bandwidth.
They also don't feature multiple e-mail accounts. Most free web hosting services only give you one email account and it's
usually a web based internet account with very minimal space. The vast majority of free hosting does not include support or
modules for features like Flash Programming, mySQL, PHP, CGI Scripts, Ruby on Rails, SSL and Dynamic Hypertext Markup
Language (DHMTL).
In summary, free web hosting is for novices who want a no cost hosting option without any bells and whistles. For a few dollars
a month, professional web hosting is well worth
the cost.
