11/6/2005 - Why Free Web Hosting May not be a Bad Thing

There is paid web hosting and there is free web hosting. Most people tend to steer clear of free web hosting as they tend to believe that “there is no free lunch”. Free web hosting must have its catches?

Well, that really depends on your purposes and your position.

Why purpose?

If your web hosting is for your website which is for commercial purposes, such as an ecommerce web-store, you need absolute reliability and uptime. Every second of downtime is lost revenue. While some free web hosting providers guarantee uptime, you cannot hold it against them if their services do not meet expectations and cause your business to lose hundreds of dollars of revenue. Why? Because most free web hosts will have a clause in their terms that state that they do not guarantee uptime at all because they are a free service. Now, most free hosts will not even guarantee any uptime and those free web hosting services are provided on a best effort basis. You cannot risk hosting your crucial business website on such a free hosting plan.

However, for most individuals who are experimenting with building websites, free web hosting is the ideal choice as there is no monetary commitment and no lost for both parties. Everyone deserves a chance to learn and what better way to learn than to do it? Free web hosting plans from free hosts are the ideal platform for aspiring webmasters to start their web-building careers. Of course these free hosts may require something in return: visiting sponsors, displaying ads on hosted pages, reading emails, and lately, participating in online communities of the free web-host. This last option may not be a bad thing as online communities allow the users to interact and learn from each other.

There is also a last category of users who just want free web hosting for a personal site which they do not find the need to be up all the time and do not see the need to pay for it and do not see the need to do anything for it. There are some free web hosts out there who offer free hosting for nothing – just a simple sign up. Therefore, a clear purpose for using free web hosting is important. If the purpose is critical and there is no tolerance for problems, then free webhosting is not suitable. Other than that, free web hosting is not a bad thing.

Why position?

Web hosting plans are relatively affordable these days (some plans as low as $1 a month) that almost any working person can afford it for their websites. Therefore, paying for web hosting should not be a problem for those who have an income, or some savings to spend on developing their websites further. Also, any working adult should be able to afford using a Paypal account that most web hosts will accept as a form of payment. On the other hand, students and young people do not have much to spend, much less a Paypal or Credit Card with which to pay for hosting. For this group of people, free web hosting plans are the obvious alternatives if they wish to set up websites without paying anything for them.

To conclude, free web hosting may not be a bad thing for selected groups of people who have a specific purpose. For students and people looking to learn about developing websites, free web hosting is a good thing.

Dax Christopher maintains a two year old webmaster community at http://www.Buildtolearn.com, a forum community that provides free web hosting to members discusses web-hosting and webmaster related issues such as web-design, page coding, SEO and many others.

11/6/2005 - How to Choose a Web Host

Once you decide that you need web page either for your business, non-profit organization or simply a fun personal page, you then have the Herculean task of choosing a web host. Hopefully, the host you choose will be easy on the pocket, and offer maximum uptime, enough bandwidth support, appropriate web-space, and excellent customer service and support. Most web hosting services will not excel in all areas, however if you take the time to make an informed decision you can have it all!

The type of web services you desire and the purpose for which the web site is being created plays a major role in the choice for a web host. If the web site to be hosted is a commercial website, checking uptime period of the considered server is vital. Anything less than 99.5% uptime would be unacceptable for most commercial web sites. This is because search engines may be indexing your site at any moment of time and if your site were down it would lose its chance to be indexed on that particular search engine and hence lose probable business. Also, existing customers who would be visiting your site and are unable to load your web page may develop a negative impression about you that could harm business reputation. If the site is for a non-profit organization, a club or any personal page intending to only keep related people informed about certain aspects, a requirement for 99.5% uptime might not be a major criterion in your decision.

Another important aspect is the amount of file space that host offers. An average commercial web site normally contains not more than a few hundred web pages, some java or php scripts and image and multimedia files. All this information ordinarily does on not require web space more than 50-100 MB. Some hosts will charge a lot for additional space, while others will provide much more than 50-100 MB at a minimal cost.

Bandwidth is another issue you should carefully consider. If your site is just a personal homepage, it is unlikely you will get much traffic. However, if your site is an ecommerce site and you are expecting upwards of a thousand visitors a day, you should check the monthly bandwidth allowance that the host offers, since you will be charged if your site goes over this amount.

Make sure to check what “extras” the host offers. Does it give you up to 3 email accounts, or up to 100? Does it allow you to setup subdomains? What technologies does it support? For instance, if you plan to use PHP, make sure that server actually has PHP installed!

Finally, you should check out the web host’s reputation. Have they been in business a long time? Do they have a good reputation within the industry? Are they known for customer service? If your web site is a critical piece of your business, it would be wise to entrust it to a reputable hosting service.

Paul Herbert is very interested in UK web hosting. Learn more at http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/web_hosting_uk/web_hosting_packages.php.

11/6/2005 - Web Hosting: Price Vs. Quality

As the Internet expands, demand for different web-hosting services increases proportionally. Additional numbers of people are joining the web world every day with personal sites for their business or organization. Many people choose low-cost solutions to host their web site, but it if your web site is important to you, you should consider quality as much as price.

For instance, putting your site on a low costs web host can affect the speed at which customers access it. Many surfers on broadband connections get annoyed when site’s server does not keep up with their connection. If it does not offer fast access and downloads, people will be reluctant to revisit the site. They would leave the place with a negative impression about you result in long term economic loss.

A well-established web host may charge more for the facilities but in the long run they may offer better and latest services complying with the trends in the market. Some high quality hosts even offers free add-ones and promotions. The features like free web site builder or support for MySQL databases ensure that the ultimate cost involved in building a productive website are a lesser amount. These facilities may not be available when one goes for a cheaper web host – or you may have to pay extra for them!

The cheapest web hosts may not always have a good reputation, either. Reputable companies in the web hosting business have a well-established infrastructure that ensures better services. Their servers tend to be down less frequently and they are less likely to go out of business (and take your data with them!).

Thus it is advisable to check out a host’s reputation and quality as well as its price. The good news is, there are some web hosts that offer both outstanding service as well as competitive prices. Don’t sell yourself short with anything else!

Paul Herbert recommends Net Explorers ( http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/ ) for high quality UK web hosting.