Semalt Explains How To Find The Best Free Web Hosting
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Definition and Types of Web Hosts
- How Does Web Hosting Work?
- Free VS Paid Web Hosting
- What To Consider Before Choosing A Web Host
- So, What Is The Best Free Web Hosting?
- Conclusion
Introduction
When it comes to web hosting and web host providers, more options are available now than they were five years ago. And more options will be on the market five years from now. So, finding the best web host can be a bit of a hassle, especially if you are just starting or you are looking into switching to a new web host provider. But luckily, some criteria need to be present in a web hosting service before it can be classified as a worthy choice. Continue reading to know which is the best free web hosting service for your website.
Web Hosting is a crucial part of website design, development, and management. And anyone interested in building a website either as a body or as an individual needs to have a good understanding of web hosting and web host providers. Apart from finding the best option, there needs to be a basic understanding of what it does and how it works. The next few sections would be dedicated to explaining the basics of web hosting, the types, and what to look out for in a good web hosting service. The difference between free and paid web hosting will also be examined (including the pros and cons of both).
So let's begin.
Definition and Types of Web Hosts
To effectively explain the concept behind web hosting, take a look at this illustration. Imagine a man with a business idea to sell gadgets (phones, laptops, and the likes). He has some ideas for a name, has the product, has gotten his business registered, and is ready to burst out of his cave. He would need a physical store (or any physical space) to store and sell his gadgets, right? Some people buy land and build a store, while some others (majority) rent a space. This is exactly what happens online.
When you have an idea for a website (either a blog, a portfolio, an e-commerce store, or whatever), you have to rent a space (server) so that your website can be visible to everyone with an internet connection online. The server (physical or online) makes it possible for the website to be visible 24/7. Therefore, it has to always be connected to a very strong network and have a lot of disk space. Luckily, web hosting providers have made finding a good server easy because they have a large number of servers (available for rent) in well-secured physical buildings. So when you sign up for a web hosting service, what is really happening is that you are renting a physical space in the form of a server so that your files can be stored, published, and accessed online.
So what is web hosting?
It is an interconnected structure that allows people to publish their websites online. It can also be defined as the service that 'houses' a website. It helps to manage and set up the website by providing tools for design and optimization, support, email, security, etc. There are different types of web hosts: shared hosting, Resell hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting. Here is a little something on them:
- Shared Hosting: This is the most common type of hosting and also the most affordable. What happens here is that many websites share one server. Using our illustration, many people are renting one space. This means that all the resources (connection and disk space) are being shared among the websites. This form of hosting is used by blog sites, small and medium organizations, and small businesses. The disadvantage of this type is that if one website has a lot of traffic or is sending / receiving a lot of data, the other websites might lag or experience a major downtime. It could even crash in the worst scenarios.
- Dedicated Hosting: This is much more expensive than shared hosting. So it is not very common. However, this is a better option for large organizations or anyone that is looking to build his or her website on a large scale. Here, one website is dedicated to one server. This means that the website has access to a hundred percent of the connection and the disk space. However, the website owner has to update and monitor the server from time to time.
- VPS Hosting: This is short for Virtual Private Servers, and it is a mix of the two earlier mentioned. The server is virtual and not physical, so the disk space is almost unlimited. Here, more than one website shares the server, and each website owner has a dedicated virtual server with full control.
Though there are many web-hosting providers, some people (and organizations) take part in Self-Hosting, which is a way for people to create their own servers using some software on the computer. However, this is always extremely expensive (even more than the dedicated hosting). But despite the cost attached to web hosting, some people offer free services. In the next section, the difference between free and paid hosting would be looked into.
Free VS Paid Web Hosting
Simply, free web hosting services offer all that has been mentioned FOR FREE, while paid web hosting would require you to subscribe to a plan, and pay regularly (or once). In today's world, it is quite difficult to believe that something that comes for free is entirely good. That is somewhat true. When you sign in for a free web host, get ready to face too many ads, shared branding, lagging customer support, limited pages and bandwidth, and restrictions to some features.
But free doesn't necessarily mean less. You would still be given good security, a good network bandwidth, and port speed. And realistically, the pages, disk space, and bandwidth provided by free web hosting are just enough for anyone with a small or medium scale business. Except your brand is bigger and requires special features, you can use a free web hosting service and still make the most out of it.
Additionally, you don't have to feel stuck on the free hosting service, you can always upgrade whenever you feel the need to. This way, the cost would be better accounted for.
So now ask yourself; Free or Paid? A great guess of what your answer will be is Free. That's why you are still reading an article on 'Best Free Web Hosting', right?
What To Consider Before Choosing A Web Host
Regardless of all that was said of free web hosts, not all of them are worthy of your choice. Some are nothing to write home about. But lucky, you don't have to dance around the internet looking for which one you should choose and why. Here are some guidelines to knowing the good ones among the multitude.
- Check for the speed to make sure that all the pages are loading fast.
- The storage ad bandwidth should be large enough to cover your files. If your website would contain a lot of videos and pictures than texts, look for a large storage space.
- Are you allowed to scale up? If the web hosting service does not allow for scaling, go for another one.
- Make sure that the host has a continuous uptime so that your site can run for 24 hours every day (even at night).
- How supportive is their technical support?
- Check if it has a monthly traffic limit and if you can work around it.
- Another piece of advice is to confirm the level of security placed on your data. You won't want to lose your files after much effort.
- Finally, don't be afraid to back out of the hosting service if you do not contend with the services they offer. It is free anyway.
So, Which Is The Best Free Web Hosting?
It's a little difficult to pick one from the millions of web hosting services online as the best. This is especially because different websites need varying features. A news site would need less disk space than a how-to video tutorial site. And so, even though there isn't a one-fits-all answer, there is a way to streamline which ones would serve you best among the rest.
First, cut off all the wrong ones using the guidelines provided above. Next, note down the advantages that one has over the other and the disadvantages. Then you would be able to select which works best for you.
Another way to pick the best is to hire a professional in website development. They would be able to know which hosting is better for you since they have been in the business for a long time.
Conclusion
Launching a website online is not a hard task. The complexity is in finding the right web hosting for you. Just as renting a bad and unsecured physical store for the selling of your product or service, using the wrong host can cause you to lose your website. Therefore, it is a serious business. That's why it is advisable to get professionals involved. And companies like Semalt offer free consultation services so you don't have to worry about costs.