Can
you really get FREE web hosting?
Yes,
there are hundreds of free hosts, as far as not having to
pay any money. Generally they either cost you in time, hosting
restrictions, or modifying your web pages by adding popups
or other adverts. When looking for free web hosting (especially
on search engines), you should beware that there are also
a large number of commercial web hosts that claim to offer
free hosting, but those have a catch, such as paying an excessive
amount for a domain name or other service, and therefore aren't
really free.
How
do the free web hosts make money?
The
free hosts often make money in other ways, such as putting
banners, popups, or popunders on your site. Some free hosting
companies do not put ads on your site, but require you as
the webmaster to click on banners in their control panel or
signup process, or just display banners in the file manager
in hopes you will click them. Some lure visitors with free
hosting in hopes you will upgrade and pay for advanced features.
A few send you occasional emails with ads, or may even sell
your email address.
Are
free web hosts reliable?
Generally
no, although there may be a few exceptions. If the host is
making money from banner ads or other revenue sources directly
from the free hosting, then they likely will stay in business,
provided someone doesn't abuse their hosting with spam, hacking,
etc., as often happens to new free web hosting companies with
liberal signup policies. If the host accepts just anyone,
especially with an automated instant activation and it offers
features such as PHP or CGI, then some users invariably try
to find ways to abuse it which can cause the host to have
a lot of downtime or the server to be slow. It is best if
you choose a very selective free host which only accepts quality
sites (assuming you have one).
Uses
for free webspace
Free
web hosting is not recommended for businesses unless you can
get domain hosting from an ad-free host that is very selective,
such as DistantHost
(http://signup.distanthost.com/) or Fairmount (http://www.fairmount.nu/).
Other reasons for using free hosting would be to learn the
basics of website hosting, have a personal website with pictures
of your family or whatever, a doorway page to another website
of yours, or to try scripts you have written on different
hosting environments.
How
to find the right free web hosting
The
best place to search for free webhosting is on a free webspace
directory website (i.e. a site which specializes in listing
only free web hosting providers). There are some which add
new free hosts pretty much every week (and if it is updated
often, has usually had to delete about as many). There are
also many which almost never update their site, and a huge
percent of their links and info are outdated. Unfortunately
that includes most of the directories that were the best several
years ago. The problem is free hosts change so often, and
most fold up in less than a year (often even after only a
day or two), that it is hard to keep such a directory up-to-date.
The most recommended directory is Free Webspace
(http://www.free-webhosts.com/), which has a detailed list
of over 900 free
web hosting providers with user reviews,
ratings,
forums,
and searchable
database. It is updated daily, and the advanced
free web hosting search has 42 options, helping
you to find the free hosting package with all the features
you need, such as CGI, PHP, MySQL, ASP, SSI, and FrontPage
extensions.
For
a smaller, more selective list of the best free hosts, there
is also:
100 Best Free Webspace (http://www.100-Best-Free-Webspace.com/)
Free
Hosting (http://www.Absolutely-Free-Hosting.com/)
Free
Webspace (http://www.free-webspace.org/)
Other (usually less useful) resources include subcategories
of freebies sites, search engines and directories, and forums.
Your ISP might also supply you with free webhosting.
Hints
for finding the best free web hosting
Generally
it is best not to choose a free hosting package with more
features than you need, and also check to see if the company
somehow receives revenue from the free hosting itself to keep
it in business. As already mentioned, it is best to try to
get accepted to a more selective free host if possible. Look
at other sites hosted there to see what kind of ads are on
your site, and the server speed (keep in mind newer hosts
will be faster at first). Read the Terms of Service (TOS)
and host features to make sure it has enough bandwidth for
your site, large webspace and file size limit, and any scripting
options you might need. Read free webspace reviews and ratings
by other users on free hosting directories. If you don't have
your own domain name, you might want to use a free URL forwarding
service so you can change your site's host if needed.
Recommended
free web hosts
It
would be awfully hard to recommend any host and someone not
like it, as different people need different hosting features
and have different priorities, and the hosting quality may
change over time. Also some people want free domain hosting
(you own the domain), and others might not be able to buy
a domain. Here are some of the most recommended free web hosts,
and their main features.
DistantHost (http://signup.distanthost.com/)
offers subdomain or domain hosting, 100 MB webspace, no forced
ads on your site, FTP and/or browser upload, CGI and Perl,
PHP, MySQL database, SSI, and FrontPage Extensions, as well
as a collection of other pre-installed scripts. It has great
support and a generous bandwidth limit of 6 GB/month. There
is also CPanel 7 control panel with most if not all the options
you would find on a paid host: web-based Email and forwarding,
statistics, custom error pages, SSL, Cron, and much more.
What is the catch? You must click on a certain number of banners
in the control panel monthly.
HostRave (http://www.freehosting.hostrave.com/)
gives you a URL such as http://freehosting.hostrave.com/b/
, and offers 21 MB webspace, POP3 and web-based Email, PHP
and SSI, MySQL database, guestbook and forum script, and unmetered
bandwidth. You can upload via a file manger or FTP import.
Only English websites are accepted, and there is a text link
at the top of your pages. It has about the best support of
any free host, and in fact, maybe better than any paid host.
It's two sister sites offer slightly different features:
Hp-h
(http://signup.hspages.com/cgi-bin/signup) - 50 MB.
Homepage-Host (http://www.homepage-host.uni.cc/index1.html)
- 10 MB, and no forced ads.
Yahoo
Geocities (http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/) is
controversial. Many people hate the ads they put on your site
or its other limitations, but it is one of the oldest and
most reliable free web hosts. Your URL looks like http://www.geocities.com/you
. They give you 15 MB webspace, file manager and editor, web-based
Email, and statistics. The bandwidth limit is 3 GB/month,
and the file size limit is 5 MB. You can upload several file
types such as RealAudio, RealVideo, Flash, MP3, and Java,
but other scripting is not supported.
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Keywords:
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About
the Author
Free-Webhosts.com Free Webspace,
http://www.free-webhosts.com/
Free-Webhosts.com is a directory of over 900 free web hosting
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Updated daily.
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