There are more web hosting options available online than ever before, however, not all web hosting services are created equal. There is a huge range of prices and service quality to choose from when selecting a web hosting provider.

However, before you decide to save some money and select a free web hosting service, read these top ten dirty secrets that the free web hosting services don’t want you to know about.

Dirty Secret #1:They don’t provide 24-7 customer support.

Customer service might not seem important now, but the first issue you have, you will wish you had chosen a provider with better customer service policies. There are more important things in life to worry about than your web hosting service. Choose one that will make your life easier with good customer service.

Dirty Secret #2: They don’t offer statistical information about your site.

With a free web hosting service, you miss out on a lot of information about your site that a paid service could provide you with. For example, do you know how many unique users you had this month? How does that compare to last month? If you don’t have the statistics, you will never know if your marketing is working.

Dirty Secret #3: They require you to have banner ads on your page.

Banner ads make a page look unprofessional and cluttered. Often, ads placed by a free hosting company have nothing to do with your web page’s content. At best, they are a distraction to your customers. At worst, the customer sees something they like and then leaves your website all together.

Dirty Secret #4: They don’t provide FTP access.

Ask any web developer - FTP access is essential if you want a custom-built site. Without it, you will not be able to upload entire sites, but instead will have to do it one item at a time. This can be very time consuming, especially for the larger sites.

Dirty Secret #5: They don’t guarantee uptime.

Most good web hosting services will guarantee 99% or even 99.9% server uptime. However, free web hosting services often can’t afford this type of guarantee. Every minute of lost server time is lost money for your business. Consider that cost against the often minimal fees good web hosting services can provide.

Dirty Secret #6: They don’t allow you to use your own domain name.

Often, free web hosting services will require your site to be listed as a sub-domain of their site. This will provide you with a longer URL and will make it harder for your customers to find your site.

Dirty Secret #7: They don’t allow website software like Joomla and Wordpress.

This type of software makes maintaining changing content such as blogs and articles much, much easier. Most paid web hosting companies not only allow you to use this software, they often provide the software for you, free of charge.

Dirty Secret #8: They don’t offer enough disk space or bandwidth.

Disk space and bandwidth requirements vary depending on what you plan on using your site for, but in general, free web hosting services don’t offer nearly enough of either.

Dirty Secret #9: They don’t offer email accounts with their service.

Even for the smallest outfit, you need at least five email accounts tied to your domain name for customers to contact you with. It looks very unprofessional if you have a business website with the contact information listed as joe@hotmail.com or any of the other free email services.

Dirty Secret #10: They only have one server.

While one server is usually enough for most occasions, what happens when that server needs maintenance, or worse yet, crashes at an inopportune time. You now have no website since the free web hosting service does not have a backup server.

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