Free Domain Hosting
Free Domain Hosting
Free web hosting is a popular form of web hosting for those who just want to host very basic websites which are in most cases only created as a joke. Most free web hosting services only allow you to use a sub of their own domain, meaning that free domain hosting is a bonus for those using free web hosting services since it means that they can purchase their own domain cheaply and then ‘attach’ it to their free web hosting package. Free domain hosting is a good way to avoid the high costs that can be incurred by purchasing a premium web hosting package from a well established web hosting provider, although it does pay to shop around if you are going to purchase a standard web hosting plan. Free web hosting providers have to make their money some way since servers cost money to run, and many use clients’ websites to make their money by making it compulsory to insert adverts for the free hosting provider into hosted websites. Some free domain hosting companies do use other methods to make their money such as affiliate referral schemes; for example, you may have to take part in an affiliate offer in order to pass for a free domain hosting account - some providers use the same kind of system but base it on the number of forum posts that are made by users.
It is important to stress that free domain hosting services aren’t recommended for those who wish to host a professional website on any level, especially since a highly reliable premium web hosting package with a free domain can be puchased for $5 a month these days. The stereotypical free domain hosting user is a teenager who is unable to afford a decent web hosting package, which backs up the idea that anyone wanting to host a proper website shouldn’t consider free domain hosting. However, for those starting out in the web hosting market a free domain hosting package would be more than sufficient if they just want something to get started with; a basic free domain hosting package would consist of the following:
- a small amount of disk space - something in the region of around 200 megabytes (MB)
- a small amount of bandwidth - something in the region of 1 gigabyte (GB), or in some cases it might be even less
- access to a web hosting control panel
- the hosting and running of PHP scripts
- one MySQL database, if you’re lucky.
As you can see from the list above, free domain hosting packages come with the same features that a very basic shared web hosting package would. This means that you could easily use a free domain hosting account for the testing if your new websites and applications, but not for the live hosting of them once completed.
It is common for free domain hosting providers to be around for a while then just disappear without any warning. This is because the profit margins that are involved with free domain hosting are very little or in most cases non-existent, meaning that a majority who start up a free domain hosting provider to make a quick buck will quickly find that there is no way for them to make a large profit. Since free domain hosting providers are normally run by kids who don’t know how to manage a server in any way, you will probably kind that this is another reason for a free domain hosting provider of your choice to suddenly disappear without reason. One thing to note is that there is nothing wrong with a free domain hosting provider disappearing without notice - you need to consider that you aren’t paying anything for the free domain hosting service that you are receiving, therefore meaning that you aren’t loosing any money if the provider that you are using goes bust. Since it is so easy for free domain hosting providers to perform a ‘disappearing act’, you should use this as another good reason to consider a premium website hosting package - it is highly unlikely that a premium website hosting provider is going to go bust or close down without giving customers a reasonable amount of notice to allow them to transfer their web hosting to other providers.
Free domain hosting is probably the most unreliable form of web hosting available, meaning that those wishing to have a reliable web hosting package should consider purchasing a cheap shared hosting package. Websites that contain viruses and other malicious content are normally hosted on free domain hosting servers, which makes the servers themselves more prone to attack from malicious attackers trying to take down the hosting server. The fact that server security on a free domain hosting server is weak is also another reason that malicious attackers try and attack free domain hosting servers than other web hosting servers. Since there isn’t really any profit to be made from free domain hosting, providers try and fit as many free domain hosting accounts as possible on a single server to make the most out of the disk space and bandwidth that a server has to offer - in most cases they will be overselling their free domain hosting servers to try and maximise any profit that there is to be made. Another major factor that can help make free domain hosting unreliable is the actual server resources available; since free domain hosting providers don’t have much capital, they will find it hard to be able to afford a high specification server meaning that high server loads can easily lead to a free domain hosting server crashing.
Free domain providers more or less every time offer access to a control panel so that users can manage their own free domain hosting packages. Since no official support is provided, access to a control panel is a must for most people so that they are able to manage the different aspects of their free domain hosting package with ease. Free domain hosting providers always base their web hosting plans on a Linux server because they don’t have the funds to be able to afford Windows web hosting; this means that a majority of free domain hosting providers will be offering cPanel as their control panel of choice. The idea of a control panel such as cPanel is to allow web hosting clients to be more independent with the way that they can manage their hosting accounts, and since cPanel is easy to use it makes it the perfect solution to allow free domain hosting clients to manage their free web hosting accounts. Some of the best free web hosting providers may even provide free reseller hosting accounts, in which case users will also be provided with access to the WHM control panel as well.
In conclusion, free domain hosting providers are only normally able to serve their purpose for a short amount of time since their is no profit to be made from free web hosting. Since there is a risk of free domain hosting providers going bust at any time, it is important that you at least take backups of your free domain hosting account on a regular basis so that you can move to a professional web hosting provider if needs be.
