Look Before you Leap into Free Web Hosting
There are many options available to us these days for free web hosting. Before you leap into a free hosting site there are things to consider. Building and promoting a website takes time, and you can lose many good features by choosing the wrong host.
Why do you want a website? Is it for connecting with your friends, and making new friends? Social networking is a big industry these days, with many sites such as Facebook and MySpace. You can easily invite and connect with your people.
Are you looking for good hosting for your photo you might want to check out Flicker, though the social networking sites will serve you as well in displaying many photos.
Many of the free web space hosts give you options such as templates and add on features. What they offer will vary depending on the host.
There is yet another level to free web hosting that many of these free sites do not allow, and that is the display of ads. Sure, you can talk about something you offer, and provide links to other sites, but many have it in their sign up that commercial sites are not allowed. Some do allow Google Adsense, such as the Blogspot site now owned by Google.
One of the disadvantages of a free web space is the name of your website. Though you will have a little creative latitude on a portion of the name, it will always contain your free web space domain name as well. One example of this is http://atravel-adventure.blogspot.com. The host domain is blogspot, with the subdomain atravel-adventure.
Depending on the type of site you want to have, you may have to think about paid hosting. For example, if you want your own domain name, like http://afreewebspace.com, , you will need to find a hosting site and purchase your domain name. Having your own host gives you more control as to the design and features of your site. One options is using a content management system, which we will talk about in the next article in this series.
Check out some of the free web space hosting sites to compare services available. Even if you outgrow your free web space hosting over time you can always link it to a new site, such as your own domain, and flow the traffic you have built to the new location.
One of the advantages of having a free web space is storage of your photo and ideas. Having an offsite storage place for your memories can save a lot of heartache in the event of a computer crash.
Free web space hosting is here to stay. Isnt it time you start your own website?