An online presence is a good advertising and marketing addition to businesses as it offers them a wide reach without spending a lot of money in the process. This coupled with personal blogs and websites have driven the demand for web hosting services.

It therefore follows there are different types of services offered to customers to enable them to choose the best one for their needs.

Free web hosting services are among these and offer their services at no cost to people looking to design and publish their websites without spending a dime.

Before jumping on the offer with glee, it is important to know the problems associated with this free service as listed below:

1. Limitations

The limitations that come with this free service are so many you have to ask yourself if they are worth the hassle. For starters, the bandwidth will be limited meaning that if you exceed a specified number of visitors to your site, you might be taken offline for a while.

The speeds are also slow because more often than not, the servers used are outdated with low memory space which can grind your website to a halt.

2. Unreliable services

Few free web hosting companies can be relied upon to stay online for a long period of time making it tricky for their clients. Since the business is not sustainable, going out of business is not new to web hosting companies. This is why such services are not ideal for business owners and are instead best for personal blogs and websites.

There is never a guarantee with these service providers which is why it is better to go with well-established ones that require you to pay for their services.

Another area that their unreliability is glaringly obvious is in the event you need to move your site to another web hosting company. You will lose data and links because the company does not keep backup data for your site on their servers.

3. Reduced features

This is expected because the hosting company does not have the funds to invest in the right equipment that offer best features. Scripting like PHP and CGI are non-existent for customers which limits the website designing process.

FTP (file transfer protocol) access is not available meaning that you cannot exchange data online as the bandwidth and servers do not support this.

Do not expect to have a domain name either as you will be sharing the hosts’ name with others (sub domain name). This means that you cannot have customized email addresses because you lack your own domain name. The subdomain name is often long and easy to forget which doesn’t work well for you.

Hackers have been said to distribute their viruses, malware and spyware through such websites due to poor security measures which is bad for business.

4. Advertisements

This is an annoying limitation that comes with free web hosting as the host takes the liberty to run adverts on your site without your consent. This is their way of making money and since it is a free service, you cannot complain about it.

Therefore, expect to see flashing windows that pop up and links that are hard to ignore. Whilst the hosting company can run these adverts without compensating you, you are not allowed to post any lucrative ads yourself making for a frustrating relationship.

Also expect to receive countless advertising emails from your hosting company and their advertisers which will quickly turn into a nuisance.

5. Zero customer support

If you get stuck, you are on your own because the free hosting does not include technical support. If you are not knowledgeable in technical matters, it is best to steer clear of such hosting services.

You might end up paying someone to help you out with the website designing process which will be costlier than subscribing for a paid hosting plan. In the off chance that customer support is offered, it is usually so poor it is a wonder it exists at all.

Final Word

When you weigh the pro – which is the fact that you pay nothing for the web hosting services – against the cons, it is obvious this type of hosting should be avoided at all costs. You don’t want to live in fear due to the uncertainty associated with such companies therefore, before making your decision, do your homework on the subject.

Author Bio:

William Smith is the author of this article and he is working in web hosting service industry since 5 years. He loves to write and share important issues about web hosting. In this article he has focused on the problems of free hosting and let other readers know about it. He also collects updated information from several webhosting review websites such as webhostingreviewjam.com for his writing.