This article talks about what Free Domain Hosting is and what your options are for hosting a domain. Domain Hosting is a very important part of having a website for your business. Read this article to learn about why it may we worth paying for a domain.

When you have a business, it seems as though the expenses keep adding up. Indeed, there are always things to pay for, from services to supplies, on top of building and operating expenses, and - if you have employees - payroll. The number of things a business owner has to pay for is surprising to many. What is not surprising, however, is the fact that many business owners want to cut costs where they can. In the case of Web hosting, it may seem like a good idea to get free domain hosting in order to save money. After all, it's just a Web site, right?

What is domain hosting?

First of all, it helps to know what domain hosting is. In order to have a Web site, you will need a location somewhere on the Internet. The Internet is actually a bunch of computers connected together. These computers are known as servers. They are computers without monitors, and with a great deal of memory and diskspace. These servers provide a physical location for your Web site - one that anyone can access if they can get online.

These servers are owned by various organizations. While you can build your own server and maintain it, for most small to medium sized businesses, this is an expensive and time consuming option. Instead, it is easier and often cheaper to just rent space on someone else's server. Indeed, there are whole businesses built up around the idea that you can purchase space on a server for your Web site. This is called domain hosting. Someone hosts you on their server for a fee. Sometimes you can even be hosted for free.

Free domain hosting

Free domain hosting is tempting for many businesses. This is because it can save them a great deal of money over the years if they don't pay for Web hosting. Most businesses benefit from a Web site, and it is fast becoming necessary. So it is little surprise that many business owners prefer to look for ways to cut costs through free domain hosting. But it is important to remember that these types of arrangements are not truly free.

First of all, someone has to pay for it. There are expenses associated with domain hosting. Space, bandwidth and domain name registration all has to be paid for. Even if you are not paying for it, your Web host is. And that means that your host needs some way to make some money. Usually this is done through some sort of ad system. If you get free domain hosting, you may find that your Web host can place third party ads on your Web site. Maybe even for businesses that compete with you.

Additionally, when you get free domain hosting, you rarely get your own domain name. Instead of yourcompanyname.com, you might end up with something like yourcompanyname.wordpress.com. This means that you are a subdomain of someone else's domain. Having third-party ads, and having someone else's domain name as part of yours, can be unprofessional and make your business look bad.

You get what you pay for

While free domain hosting may be a cheap money saver, you should remember the old saying about getting what you pay for. You may not have as much diskspace or bandwidth as you might like. Chances are that your Web site is on a crowded server with hundreds - or even thousands - of other Web sites. This can lead to down time, slow load times and other technical problems. And when you have free Web hosting, the customer support just isn't there as much as you would like it to be. Web hosts take care of their paying clients first.

If your business Web site is unreliable, you could end up with fewer customers. No one wants to depend on a business Web site that is, well, undependable. And, once again, you come off looking unprofessional (as if the extra ads and domain name weren't enough).

Web hosting is usually fairly inexpensive. It is often affordable, ranging from $3.95 per month to $35.95 a month for basic shared hosting packages. For more expensive dedicated hosting and ecommerce hosting packages, you might pay as much as $200 a month. However, it is likely that you can find a very affordable domain hosting package that provides you with reasonable support and lets you pick your own domain name. You may have to pay extra to register your domain name, but at least it's yours.

Before you get free domain hosting, stop and think about how your company is likely to look in such a case, and how you want to portray yourself. If you want to look more professional, it might be a good idea to find some affordable domain hosting instead of going with the free.

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