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Free hosting - is it charity?

"Free hosting" is most of the time offered in exchange for placing advertisements on your website, meaning that the host will automatically place an advertisement at the top and sometimes at the bottom of every page of your website. Sometimes they don't use banners they use pop-ups.

No matter what they ask you to do in exchange for free hosting, you have to do something in exchange, so you're not being offered free hosting! They give you hosting in exchange for placing ads on your website. They call it free because you don't give them any money, but you do pay for it.

They claim and even convince you that they're doing you a favor: they give you free hosting. They know that if you think the service is free you'll not complain for downtime, unresponsive support teams. But you're not getting it for free! Now, even if they would offer it for free, the service should be at least acceptable. But it usually isn't.

What these free hosting services always seem to forget to mention is the fact that they're not charities. They're businesses and they're always looking for ways to make a profit.

They use the word "free" whereas the right name for it should be "barter hosting" or "trade hosting" or "ad-funded hosting".

Common problems with free hosting

It should not be a surprise that free hosting is not as good as paid hosting. The problems that are common in the paid hosting section of the hosting industry are almost a rule in the world of free hosting. Timely is almost out of the question with most free hosts. Excessive downtime and slow servers are almost the norm rather than just common problems.

That isn't to say that free web hosting can't be acceptable in terms of quality. There are some companies that offer reliable free web hosting. Don't get it wrong, reliable here doesn't mean paid-hosting-reliable, it means reliable according to the free hosting standards (whatever that means).

Free hosting without the ads

Yes, you can find free hosting that doesn't require the placement of ads on your pages. That doesn't mean the company isn't there to make a profit! The free account will give you only a small amount of bandwidth and space. What the hosting company does is give you free hosting while you're starting your website/business and/or your needs are low.

They figure (bet) that you'll go for their paid version (most free hosts have paid plans too), as soon as your website will outgrow its account in terms of bandwidth and/or space.

Some free hosts allow only the use of subdomains or directories, which means that your website's URL will look something like this: yourwebsite.yourhost.com or www.yourhost.com/yourwebsite. That means that if you move your website you'll lose all those hard earned links that point at it, people will send you emails that you'll never read etc. You are stuck with that host!

What's in it for the host in this case? Well, the host gets brand awareness because it gets to be published in the countless of free hosting directories. Also it gets its name in your URL and in the URL of lots of other websites. Branding again! Also, if the service is at least acceptable it will get a good reputation, which often is worth more than pure gold. All those ultimately mean more business for their business.

It happened and it still does, that some hosts start their business with a great "free hosting" offer. Their name soon gets published all over the Internet. After a while (usually a year or more) the company stops offering free hosting. Some of their "free" clients will agree to become paying customers, while others will decide to see their work vanish into oblivion, but not pay. By that time though, the host gains immense brand awareness. It might also get quite a few clients as soon as they turn into a paid host because of those clients that were hosted for free and decide to pay to keep their websites up and running.

Conclusions

Free hosting is not free - at least in the form in which it exists on the internet today. I have yet to find a free host that is a real charity. As strange as it might sound, look out for free hosts that seem to be completely free (charity-like). A host must have funding! Ask them how do they cover or plan to cover their costs. Is there a foundation behind that host? It's highly unlikely, but who knows!

All hosts have to pay for the servers, bandwidth and staff. If they don't have a good plan to cover the costs, the future for them is grim and services will soon degrade due to under funding.

The best option if you don't want to spend money for hosting is to barter for it with a respected, serious, honest web host. But don't ever trick yourself into thinking that you're getting something for nothing. Ads are a form of payment so you're paying.