Choosing a Free Web Host for Your Business

What's On Offer - An Overview

You are running a business. Perhaps you want to test the waters before shelling out large sums of money to set up your commercial web-site. Or perhaps you simply want to save as much money as possible. Whatever the reason, you have probably at some stage seriously considered using a free web host. If so, then you this overview may go at least some of the way in helping you make your choice.*

All of the hosts surveyed below offer virtual domain hosting, email, and (approx) 20-40mb storage space, along with some version of online forms processing ability (eg through Frontpage extensions or cgi-scripts). Most require banner advertising be placed on users' web-sites, though they do also allow users to upgrade to banner-free hosting for a fee.

These, then, are the commonalties. Now to the differences. What sets these hosts apart, and why would you choose one over the other?

It really depends on your priorities….

If you are seeking support and the opportunity to network with others, your first choices would probably be hypermart.net or bizland.com

Hypermart.net is an "all rounder" [www.hypermart.net], which offers a very full range of site hosting features., including cgi and Frontpage support. It also has a wide range of free support facilities and web-tools.

Bizland.com [www.bizland.com], like hypermart.net, bills itself as a community as well as a web-host. Bizland also provides a free shopping cart.

If you hold a foreign (non-US) domain, then Netfirms (www.netfirms.com) should probably be your first point of call. Netfirms can host any country specific domain name.

If your priority is to set up an online shopping cart and merchant account, then look closely at freemerchant.com [www.freemerchant.com] , which specialises in providing shopping carts for small business merchants. Freemerchant.com also allows users to attach free shopping cart functionality to their existing web-sites. It does not require banner ads -- a big plus. On the other hand, the reliance on templates for developing sites can limit the ability to customise the design of one's site

All of the hosts we have mentioned so far are Unix-based. If you, on the other hand, prefer working in a Windows environment, then atfreeweb.com [www.atfreeweb.com] is seriously worth considering. Notable features include support of Active Server Pages and Frontpage extensions.

Free Hosting - What to Watch Out For

We have looked at some of the benefits of using a free host, and listed some of the important players in the free hosting market. In this part we will list of some of the major drawbacks of using a free host for your business.

1. Limited Support

Your free host's primary source of income will be their advertisers, and this is where their primary loyalty will lie -- not with the user. In addition to this, many free hosts have lots of users - after all, they need a big user base to support their advertising! So, whatever support services they do offer will probably be thinly spread. These two factors - primary focus on advertising revenue along with a large user base -- mean that you will probably get less support from them than you will get from a host for whom users are the primary revenue source.


2. Unreliability of Software and Servers

Servers may be slower due to the numbers of users hosted, or simply because top quality servers are not a high priority. Email may be unreliable. In such cases, you the user will often will have no rights or recourse.


3. "Fishooks" in the Terms

Many free hosts will limit your use of their servers in ways that could present problems, and in some cases will even terminate your account if it is not used. As an example, hypermart.net's terms state that:

"HyperMart-hosted Web sites are subject to removal if there is no activity (hits or edits) on the site for fifteen (15) days. HyperMart reserves the right to delete any site it deems unacceptable for any reason without prior notice. "

So if no-one visits your site, and you do not edit it, in a 15-day period, tough luck, your account will be removed! This will not do your business any good! And, of course, you have very few rights here - again, the primary loyalty of these free service providers will be the advertiser rather than you, the user.

So, study the host's terms of service closely!


4. Limitations on Use of Web-Space

Most free hosts require that a banner ad be placed at the top of each page on your web-site, and you will have little control over what type of ad is placed. The content of the banner ad may clash with the image your web-site is presenting; and, of course, if obtaining advertising funds of your own is a planned source of revenue, then obviously this banner be a problem for you!

Free hosts will often rule out certain types of trading altogether. For instance, if you plan to resell web-space, or host a banner exchange, you will not be able to use hypermart.net, as its terms of service rule out these uses of its servers. Similarly, if you plan on gaining a large part of your revenue from affiliate programs, or commissions gained from selling other merchants' products, then freemerchant.com is not for you, as it explicitly rules out creating links to affiliates.


In conclusion, if you are running a mission-critical site, free hosts are not the best places to go. (But, then, you probably knew that already!) However, if you are simply testing the waters or experimenting with a site to see whether your business idea works before fully committing to it, then by all means, try a free host - but keep your eyes open!


* Note: Because there is such a huge selection of hosts to choose from, I have been somewhat selective: reviewing only the better-known hosts, or those who can offer something unique which 'sets them apart from the crowd'.

Free Web Hosting Tips

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you look for a free web hosting account online.

1. Content Ownership – You might not own the space, but it is your content. That means that you should expect some sort of notice if the service is going offline so that you can make alternative arrangements or save your information to your computer.

2. Tools – Surprisingly many free web hosting accounts come with lots of tools that you can use to enhance your site. The larger the hosting provider or hosting community, the more tools you will have in your control panel.

3. Free domain names – Usually you are getting a subdomain or even a subfolder for your files. Typically free domain names only come with a paid hosting account. The reasons is that bandwidth is very expensive and no one wants to build up a free web hosting service unless they have access to cheap resources.

It is not surprising then that the free web hosting market is dominated by companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bravenet. They are large organizations who have figured out ways to balance paid services and free services without going broke.

4. Search engine optimization – Some free hosting communities are so large and so fluid that it takes some time get new pages into the major search engines. People abandon their pages at such a high rate that is hard to keep up with the live sites versus abandoned real estate.

Also, any page rank you get goes to the hosting provider and not to you that is one of the perks of having your own domain name.

5. Tracking – It always helps to know who is coming to your website and how they got there. You might have to search around for some type of free tracking service. This is very important if you plan to make money off your free web hosting account.

My picks
Bravenet, Yahoo Geocities and Blogger. I have used all three and I haven’t had the time lately to investigate other services. I will add to the list in the near future.

Why Free Hosting Isn't Really Free

I want to yell at someone or give 'em a good poke in the nose for this! How could they do this to me? What gives them the right to blow off my best customers, to rob me of potential business and make my clients angry at me? How dare they do this!! I'm just fuming and ready to explode! Don't get too close to me right now!

Why I oughtta . . . what? Complain because a free service isn't available? Threaten to sue them for having troubles of their own? Why don't they have backup servers? Well, I guess it's possible that *I* could at least provide a secondary free service to cover my assets. Those clients that planned to spend an hour of their valuable time to chat with me in the first place. Maybe I should have prepared for the worst so I don't have to go apologize to everyone when the free chat services suddenly became unavailable.

OK, so maybe I ought to upgrade that chat room to the premium version, the one that costs a few bucks a month, the one without the advertising banners, the one with the customer service and support. The one that WORKS when I've invited over 3,000 people to come to a Grassroots Internet Marketing Forum and chat!

Maybe this will teach me that you can't rely on free services. What does it cost me to fail to deliver on my promises?

The web has got us all relying on free services to run businesses and expecting those freebies to be trouble free and convenient at all times. I upgraded from the free internet access when I tired of their glaring ads across my web pages. I upgraded from the free autoresponders when they stopped working during a major promotion launched via press releases and direct mail campaigns. *That* cost the good-will of my clients that didn't get responses from me as promised.

I will now upgrade to the paid version of the chat room with all the additional benefits of a paying customer, including the right to complain and lay blame and threaten the provider because they cost me potential new business and lost me those existing clients.

Take a look at the free services you use online and analyze them to see how a failure to perform would affect your bottom line.

How important are those free services you rely on? Are they risks to your business future? Note that 'Terms of Service' on the vast majority of free services online tell you outright that providers have no obligation to serve your needs if there are problems and that you have no recourse should your business fail because the FREE service has it's costs after all.

We all have a budget to work within to operate a site profitably but would it cost you more if that free web host went down than it would cost to pay for your web hosting? If your email doesn't get delivered because your free email account suffers from a system failure, would it hurt your sales or customer relations? If that online fax service stopped working when you were waiting for a big contract from a new client, would you be better off upgrading to the paid version of the service with more benefits?

We'll reschedule that chat, now that we've paid for it -- DOUBLE! Whatcha want fer free? GRRRRRRRR!!!