For anyone who's new to the world of websites, or indeed those on a tight budget, the concept of free web hosting always sounds appetizing. As you're probably aware however, very little in this world is truly free. Often those offering something for free are seeking something else in return, even if it's not your money. Consequently, is free hosting really all it's cracked up to be?

Hosting (like most other services) costs money to provide. Although the services offered by free web hosts are often very basic compared to those that which you might buy, that web host would still soon be out of pocket if they couldn't recuperate their costs via some means. This is precisely why most free web hosts display some kind of advertisements on any websites you have with them.

Although these advertisements can often (though not always) be "closed" or hidden after they've been displayed, they always look quite unsightly and as such can vastly degrade the browsing experience of your visitors, and even the credibility of the person running the website - you!

For that reason alone, anyone who is making a website for more than sheer enjoyment - especially those seeking to conduct business via their website - should dismiss any free web hosts who leave you with no choice but to display advertisements on their behalf. It's probably a better idea to dismiss all free web hosts completely, in such instances. What you'd save by not paying for hosting would not be worth the amount of business or visitors you'd lose as a result.

The second big disadvantage of most free web hosting services is that they're normally not rigged up to provide up-to-date technologies that most modern websites now utilize and require. Most websites are no longer merely static HTML pages built in point and click web design software - even those made by amateurs. Many are blog-based, or include community forums or the ability for visitors to leave feedback to be displayed on that website, amongst other things. All these things require that your web hosting service be capable of processing different scripting languages (such as PHP) in addition to having back-end database support, such as MySQL. This is all functionality that a great many of free web hosts simply cannot or will not offer to non-paying customers.

Customers of free web hosts are often not required to provide their full personal details. Couple that with the fact that no payment is required andit's clear that the web host has no way to verify the validity of that customers information. As such they have no reassurance whatsoever that their customer doesn't have unsavoury intentions - such as the intention to spam or host illegal material. This is precisely the reason most free web hosts deny customers the ability (or lack the support) to host any files beyond static HTML pages and a limited number of images.

Overall, there is little alternative but for anyone who is seeking to run a serious, functional website to shell out for some paid web hosting. Nowadays it's so cheap as to be little to no burden on ones wallet.