Free hosting is probably the most tempting method of building a blog. Sure, it can be a great way to test the blogging waters to see if blogging is really for you, however, I personally don’t recommend using a free hosting service for a blog you want to be taken seriously for several reasons.

Reasons Not to Use a Free Host

  1. The Pros Know – Sure there are a few blogs that began on free hosting and made it big such as Pink is the New Blog – but it’s rare that a professional blogger can stake claim on that type of success. Aside from that, how many times have you seen a professional, A or even B list blog hosted on a blogspot or WordPress domain? Enough said.
  2. Location, Location, Location – Would you buy from or take advice from someone who could not afford $7.95 per month to host their own website? Personally, I look at a website and it’s content as a storefront of sorts. If the person who owns the site or writes the content for the site believe in their product enough, they will provide it with a suitable “location” that will make visitors and would be customers believe in what they are selling, whether it’s an idea or a product.
  3. Customizing Limitations – There  are very few WordPress.com themes available on the free hosting and even fewer on Blogger. There are also limits on what you can do to customize your sidebars. Free hosts generally restrict the amount of space you can take up on their servers. You are very limited on many basic features needed to run an ecommerce site, such as cgi-bins and shopping carts.
  4. Long & Easily Forgettable Domain Addresses – Which domain would you remember most if you were your visitor?  http://members.somerandomfreeserver.com/myamazingwebstore.com or http://myamazingwebstore.com? Enough said!
  5. Cheap Domains Equal Cheap Returns On Investment – Your time is worth something – right? Why invest hours upon hours creating fabulous content on a website that belongs to Blogger? Once you create the blog on your own server, it’s yours. you can’t sell something that belongs to someone else.
  6. Slow Loading Pages – Most free servers load slowly. Slow loading pages are the primary reason people fail to complete an online order. It’s also the primary reason readers will click out and move on. No one wants to wait for a page to load – it’s the internet, there’s always another site that offers something similar to what you are offering. You have to keep your reader in mind – I choose to develop my blogs with dial-up customers in mind. If my site loads for them, it will load for anyone.
  7. Forget Customer Service – If you are set up on a free server and the server goes down, there’s no one you can call to get things back up and running smoothly. You really do get what you pay for.
  8. Here a Splog, There a Splog – Free servers such as Blogger and WordPress.com are home to most spam blogs. More times than not, when readers see you are using blogger they will think you are just another splog with misinformation or stolen content.

You could always use a free web hosting service to practice writing, HTML and various other skills – but aside from that, free hosts are worth exactly what you paid for them – nada.

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Originally posted 2009-08-04 22:34:15.

Filed under: Blogging

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