In these days of tight budgets and constant expenses, it’s normal to want to find free alternatives to paid services.  Web hosting is one area in which there are several respectable free options – if you’re willing to compromise on certain aspects of your website.  The question becomes, however, when it is necessary to pay for web hosting services and when is free hosting a viable option?  Here are some things to consider when making this important decision.

1. Do you want a custom domain? Many free hosting services require you to take their domain name onto yours.  In other words, instead of having mysite.com, you’d have mysite.yolasite.com if you’re using Yola’s free hosting service and a similar extension if you’re using the free services offered by Wix, Network Solutions or one of the other dozens of free hosting providers available.
2. Do you want an ad-free website? Many free websites impose placement of advertising on websites built through their platform.  This may not bother you if you’re starting a family blog (or even a personal blog) or are just using the website to test out the features of the web host before committing.  If you’re looking to create a professional web presence, however, you may not want irrelevant ads cluttering the design of your site.
3. Do you need significant storage space or bandwidth? If you’re planning on hosting a site that contains video or audio files, you may need more storage space or bandwidth than most free web hosting service offer.  Likewise, if you’re planning on having heavy traffic to your site or hosting a database for your site, you’ll need a significant amount of storage.  Many free web hosting providers offer only 5-10 MB of storage, which is insufficient for sites that are more than just a few pages of text.  If you’re looking to post your artistic portfolio, to sell items through a product database or to stream videos directly from your site, you may want to pay for a web hosting service such as FatCow which offers unlimited storage for a very reasonable monthly fee.
4. Do you want a completely custom design? If you’re choosing free hosting services through a web design company that offers a free package you’ll likely be limited to specific design options instead of having the flexibility to choose from the full array of options.  If you’re choosing a free hosting option through a hosting provider such as i6Networks you’ll probably have full customization abilities – if you have the technical prowess to design and build your own site (and if you don’t, you’ll need to pay a significant sum for this service).
5. Do you plan to expand the scope of your site in the near future? If so, you’ll need to consider whether you’ll eventually outgrow your free hosting plan, and the expense that will be involved in transferring it to another web host, domain name or design.  These fees can add up – so if you think you’ll need to pay them soon, you may end up saving more money by paying for web hosting straight from the outset.
6. Do you want a search-engine-friendly site? Many free websites are not particularly search-engine-friendly and will not assist you in achieving natural web traffic.  If you’re looking to expand your audience through search engines, you may want to consider a paid web hosting service that is located in your country so that you can better target the audience you’re looking for.

Although free stuff always sounds appealing, when it comes to free hosting it’s important to remember that saving money now may not actually save you money in the long run.  However, the true benefit of using a free hosting package is because it allows you to test out the hosting service (and web design service when relevant) to see if you like it and whether you want to continue using this service in the long run.

There are so many web hosting services out there that it’s hard to choose the best hosting for your and your site.

A lot of site owners shop their hosting by price. Budget is an important thing to consider, but since the differences in hosting prices are negligible, there are other features and more important factors to consider when choosing the perfect hosting for you.

1. Uptime and Reliability

No matter how much fancy features the hosting offers you, they are no good if the site is down in many parts of the day. Look for hosting services that guarantee uptime, and tell you exactly how they implement this promise.

2. Customer and Technical Support

Customer support in a web hosting service should be efficient and effective, as well as polite and responsive. If you are quickly answered when contacting your hosting service, that’s a good sign. However, prompt responses aren’t enough – the hosting’s support should also be able to actually solve your problems. So – look for a combination of efficiency and responsiveness.

3. Control

If the hosting service offering you a full, user-friendly control panel? Do you have all the access you need? Is it easy to find all the functions you require for running your website? Is there proper documentation and help articles? If the answer is YES to all of these questions – than you are in the right place. The situation is ideal if you have full control of your site and can manage it on your own – most of the time.

4. Backups

A good hosting will not only enable you to back up your files, but will also do it for you, periodically. Choose a hosting service that backs up regularly.

5. Server Features

Whether you require a Linux or Windows server will depend on what you plan to do with your site. Linux servers are often cheaper, ideal for CMS like WordPress and Drupal and are more stable. However, if you need to host ASP scripts then you have no choice but to look for a Windows web host. A good hosting service will offer both kinds of servers, and enable you to move between plans when necessary.

Web hosting is always changing and updating. If you own a site, or planning to build one, it’s important to know what’s new in the web hosting services arena. Here’s a collection of news and updates of web hosting, hosting services and web development:

Deutsche Telekom takes over Web Hosting Service Strato

Deutsche Telekom informed it will take over Strato, a German Web hosting company. The boards of both companies had approved the plan but that it still faces regulatory approvals.Financial details were not disclosed.

Telekom claims the transaction would make it a leader in the German Web hosting market with Strato’s products that include and enable email, Web sites, blogs, online shopping and data storage. Strato’s business is primarily aimed at consumers and small businesses.

Strato, based in Berlin operates about 4 million hosted domains.

UK Web Hosting Service Namesco Buys Poundhost

UK domain registrar and web hosting provider Namesco has acquired UK dedicated hosting provider Poundhost. This is the first major acquisition for Namesco since May 2008.

Namesco is currently the fourth largest domain name and hosting provider within the UK. The company will own 100% of the capital of the companies composing Poundhost, including Poundhost Internet, Server Arcade, VPS and Blueconnex.

Poundhost has over 10,000 dedicated and virtual servers and a large high-end customer base, 30% of which resides in the US.

Hosting Service Site5 Plants A Tree for Each New Hosting Account

Although world leaders fail to reach a binding climate agreement this year in Copenhagen, there is still hope and action at the grassroots level. Web hosting service Site5 has partnered with mokugift to plant a tree for every new hosting account.

“Tree-planting with new accounts is a natural extension of Site5′s existing environmental philosophy. Site5′s business was designed around a remote workforce which is the greenest possible option for a company”, explained Ben Welch-Bolen, CEO of Site5.