Avoid Free Website Hosting
Posted 1st June 2014 at 03:56 PM by imarkedy
For serious businesses only; please avoid free website hosting! Many years ago when SBDC TV began, in the year 2000 to be exact, surfing the Internet was relatively new and with its increased popularity, came new technology companies to service this growing market. The company we used to access the Internet was Netzero.com. For those unfamiliar with NetZero, they opened for business (online) right around the turn of the century, had great commercials and accessing the Internet using their services cost, well, NOTHING! There were competitors who charged for business Internet access as well as personal (such as AOL) but along came NetZero promising something few had heard of at the time; free internet. Today, most can hardly imagine paying for Internet access (outside of a connection) but this, in those early days, was reality. Monetizing content was a fairly new concept and therein lay the problem with NetZero’s free service; because their portal was so heavily monetized with third party ads and when coupled with ultra-slow ‘dial-up modem’ connections, accessing the web was nearly impossible.
Having become frustrated with lack of access to the Internet, we called the company and spoke to a customer service representative and from that time, nearly 15 years ago, until now, we’ve never heard the issue with free hosting explained so well. The customer service representative said; “I know you guys are having problems and we are working hard to clear up the issues but remember, IT IS FREE”! Therein is the problem with free website hosting (free). As most regular readers know, we don’t speak on topics we haven’t studied, tested and measured. As it just so happens, free website hosting is among those SBDC TV has measured over the years and with 100% surety, we are able to warn you away from its’ use. Before going further, let us make a distinction between ‘free website hosting’ and ‘free hosting’. Free website hosts are company’s which often provide a free website-blog for personal or business use. It is a sure bet you’ve heard the names of the most well-known providers like Wordpress.com and Blogger.com.
In stark contrast, free hosting is usually a ‘sales gimmick’ whereby if you transfer an existing custom domain name, website etc. to a company’s hosting service, they won’t charge for hosting but will, without exception, use other high pressure sales tactics such as (but not limited to);
1. Aggressive advertising ‘pop-ups’
2. Purchase (and yearly subscription) for custom domain names
3. Premium service upgrade options
4. Third party Affiliate network sales offers
5. Selling your email address and personal information to third parties
6. Free Hosting trial periods at the end of which charges WILL apply
We clearly understand these to be but a few scenarios and there will be some who email us and offer there is no difference between the two business models. You are welcome to do so but please be prepared for our response which will include HARD DATA proving otherwise.
Nevertheless – Why would a company say something is free when it is not? Marketing! Whether we agree with this strategy or not is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is to understand any company giving something away free has expenses tied to providing the service and there must be ‘back-end’ revenue available. The best known of these is signing up for newsletters, free eBooks or other ‘bait’ sales techniques.
Excuse our candor but in the strongest terms possible, you should avoid free hosting plans because there are serious ramifications for your business such as (but not limited to);
1. Connection downtime; without doubt, we’ve never taken part in a free hosting service which didn’t experience more connection down-time outages than more robust paid services. For instance, our current host (Blue Host) has never failed, for all the years we’ve used them, to achieve a 99% uptime! Contrast with free hosts which, at best, achieve 70-80%. Uptime earns money while downtime costs your business money.
2. You will be monetized; any business has bills to pay and whether collecting sales upfront, directly or unseen monetization efforts, you’ll pay one way or another. If not in cold hard cash, the expense is having your information sold to a third party and/or being slammed with spam sales offers from the free host to name just a few.
3. Lack of customization options; free web hosts offer the least amount of back office services because there is no ‘front end’ gain. Take Google Business Websites for instance. One would think because it is Google, a better website builder would be available but alas, in our humble opinion, this is one of the worst web builders of all! Even their free web hosting platform, Blogger, has changed little over the years. Why? Except for content, Google (or others) have enormous expenses involved and little (if any) sales to offset. You get what you pay for (NOTHING).
4. Lack of professional appearance of the business; if you don’t take your business seriously, why should anyone else? Which of these addresses (URL) are you more likely to give credit card information to – www.howtomakemoney.blogspot.com or www.howtomakemoney.com? This is a simple issue of credibility and the former has little and the latter, lots. Many things, over the years, have changed online but free websites and blogs are still functionally marginal and their owners, usually hobbyist.
5. Economical is rarely effective; ‘you get what you pay for’ has never been truer than as with free web hosting. In trying to save a few dollars, you are not only missing the bigger picture but will never realize one is available for viewing. Take a few minutes to digest that statement.
This list could be many times longer but the point is made. For those who came across this post and are currently weighing the options, we, in no way, are attempting to make you feel bad for measuring whether to take this road or not. Allow us to copy an old Nike which says “Just Do It”, change it a bit and warn; “Just Don’t Do it.” You will expend just as much effort in ‘sweat equity’ investment building an online presence with paid options as with free options so why not, as my mother used to say – “do it right the first time?” Besides, top tier web hosting costs a mere $90 (yearly) for a custom domain, hosting and usually offer 99% uptime. Most probably spend more than that on movies, entertainment and Starbucks coffee MONTHLY. Take the plunge and soon!
B.D. Dale
Business Coach
Having become frustrated with lack of access to the Internet, we called the company and spoke to a customer service representative and from that time, nearly 15 years ago, until now, we’ve never heard the issue with free hosting explained so well. The customer service representative said; “I know you guys are having problems and we are working hard to clear up the issues but remember, IT IS FREE”! Therein is the problem with free website hosting (free). As most regular readers know, we don’t speak on topics we haven’t studied, tested and measured. As it just so happens, free website hosting is among those SBDC TV has measured over the years and with 100% surety, we are able to warn you away from its’ use. Before going further, let us make a distinction between ‘free website hosting’ and ‘free hosting’. Free website hosts are company’s which often provide a free website-blog for personal or business use. It is a sure bet you’ve heard the names of the most well-known providers like Wordpress.com and Blogger.com.
In stark contrast, free hosting is usually a ‘sales gimmick’ whereby if you transfer an existing custom domain name, website etc. to a company’s hosting service, they won’t charge for hosting but will, without exception, use other high pressure sales tactics such as (but not limited to);
1. Aggressive advertising ‘pop-ups’
2. Purchase (and yearly subscription) for custom domain names
3. Premium service upgrade options
4. Third party Affiliate network sales offers
5. Selling your email address and personal information to third parties
6. Free Hosting trial periods at the end of which charges WILL apply
We clearly understand these to be but a few scenarios and there will be some who email us and offer there is no difference between the two business models. You are welcome to do so but please be prepared for our response which will include HARD DATA proving otherwise.
Nevertheless – Why would a company say something is free when it is not? Marketing! Whether we agree with this strategy or not is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is to understand any company giving something away free has expenses tied to providing the service and there must be ‘back-end’ revenue available. The best known of these is signing up for newsletters, free eBooks or other ‘bait’ sales techniques.
Excuse our candor but in the strongest terms possible, you should avoid free hosting plans because there are serious ramifications for your business such as (but not limited to);
1. Connection downtime; without doubt, we’ve never taken part in a free hosting service which didn’t experience more connection down-time outages than more robust paid services. For instance, our current host (Blue Host) has never failed, for all the years we’ve used them, to achieve a 99% uptime! Contrast with free hosts which, at best, achieve 70-80%. Uptime earns money while downtime costs your business money.
2. You will be monetized; any business has bills to pay and whether collecting sales upfront, directly or unseen monetization efforts, you’ll pay one way or another. If not in cold hard cash, the expense is having your information sold to a third party and/or being slammed with spam sales offers from the free host to name just a few.
3. Lack of customization options; free web hosts offer the least amount of back office services because there is no ‘front end’ gain. Take Google Business Websites for instance. One would think because it is Google, a better website builder would be available but alas, in our humble opinion, this is one of the worst web builders of all! Even their free web hosting platform, Blogger, has changed little over the years. Why? Except for content, Google (or others) have enormous expenses involved and little (if any) sales to offset. You get what you pay for (NOTHING).
4. Lack of professional appearance of the business; if you don’t take your business seriously, why should anyone else? Which of these addresses (URL) are you more likely to give credit card information to – www.howtomakemoney.blogspot.com or www.howtomakemoney.com? This is a simple issue of credibility and the former has little and the latter, lots. Many things, over the years, have changed online but free websites and blogs are still functionally marginal and their owners, usually hobbyist.
5. Economical is rarely effective; ‘you get what you pay for’ has never been truer than as with free web hosting. In trying to save a few dollars, you are not only missing the bigger picture but will never realize one is available for viewing. Take a few minutes to digest that statement.
This list could be many times longer but the point is made. For those who came across this post and are currently weighing the options, we, in no way, are attempting to make you feel bad for measuring whether to take this road or not. Allow us to copy an old Nike which says “Just Do It”, change it a bit and warn; “Just Don’t Do it.” You will expend just as much effort in ‘sweat equity’ investment building an online presence with paid options as with free options so why not, as my mother used to say – “do it right the first time?” Besides, top tier web hosting costs a mere $90 (yearly) for a custom domain, hosting and usually offer 99% uptime. Most probably spend more than that on movies, entertainment and Starbucks coffee MONTHLY. Take the plunge and soon!
B.D. Dale
Business Coach
