Hosting your e-business for free? Smart thinking Johnny...

Yes, there are dozens of websites on the internet that offer free web hosting solutions, but before you place important information on Geocities or Freewebs, there's something you must understand:

Trusting your online name to a free web-host is almost always a bad idea

Why?

Not only do free web hosts often restrict your bandwidth, offer miserable http transfer speeds, place ads on your website, or severly limit functionality, but also they severly limit your potential in less tangible ways.

The most important factor is recognition. It doesn't matter how small your business is. The average internet user is going to trust www.MarysPrinting.com over http://angel24index.freehost.server.com any day of the week. Domain names are cheap, and nowadays owning a domain isn't just professional, it's a near-absolute necessity. Your users will come back, note your professionalism, and be much more likely to remember your URL.

Another factor to consider is the clutter that many free web hosts force onto the pages of clients. Banner ads, pop up ads, required links, and flashing advertising messages will make your content much less accessible and will often make your website look horrible unprofessional.

Take advice from someone who's been done that road before:

If you care about your online business at all, get a quality web host, stop wasting your time with self-serving free web hosts and register a domain name.

If you get stuck, you can check out this handy Web Hosting Guide.

About the author: David Saharkhiz is a computer science major and National Merit Semifinalist at America's Clemson University. He provides comprehensive web-help and HTML coding tutorials, codes free HTML scripts, and works to help novice webmasters set up new websites.