20 Reasons Why Having a Free Website is a Bad

Want your website? Planning to launch a website? But wait, are you planning to go for free services which offer you to have your website online for free. Then you must read this article before going further.

Here we will tell you 20 Reasons Why Having a “Free Website” is a Bad Idea

1. Extremely slow websites

Most free website hosting providers put hundreds of websites sharing the same server. This makes all their websites load at very low speeds. Slow websites create the bad user experience and are bad for SEO.

2. Unprofessional web address

Having a website address like mysmallbusiness.Freewebsite.com does not look professional at all. Visitors to your website and potential customers would find it quite difficult to take your website seriously when you don’t even have a proper domain name.
And when you ask these companies for a custom domain, you usually have to pay a premium – something like $19 – $25 for a domain which normally costs $10.

3. Hidden charges for free website

Like any other business, these free website companies need to make money too. Some of them charge their users for additional services like image hosting, email accounts, FTP access, website transfer, etc. These charges are often outrageously high.

4. They can lock down your data

Many users who start with a free website and then want to move to a paid service, find it impossible to move their website data. These service providers do not offer any tools to easily migrate your site. Users end up paying freelancers to manually export their content which can quickly increase your bill.

5. They can shut down your website

The terms and conditions of these services clearly state that they can shut down your website at any time without providing you a reason. If they shut down a website, they usually don’t give your data or provide you a way to save your content.

6. Irrelevant advertisements on your website

Most of these free website services are supported by advertisements. You create content and build your website, but they get paid for the ads. Often these ads are distracting, intrusive, and look ugly.
The worst part is, sometimes your savvy competitors can then pay these free website hosting companies to advertise on your website. Talk about sabotaging your business.

7. You will lose your site address

If they decide to close the service or shut down your website, then you will loose your web address. Most of the time it is a subdomain associated with the service. You cannot replicate that address or redirect users to your new site elsewhere.
10. They can sell your information
Remember that these services need to make money somehow to remain in the business. A good rule of thumb is if you are not paying for it, then you are the product.
These companies find other ways to make money such as selling your email address, personal information, and your website address to other companies. Their terms and conditions which no one really reads provide them total legal immunity.

8. Malware distribution

Free website services are notorious for distributing malware. This could be due to their poor security, or they could be doing it for monetary benefits. In either case, it hurts your website’s reputation and SEO.

9. You may become part of a link farm

The reason why these services keep disappearing and then reappearing is that they try to generate money using unethical methods. Building link farms are one such practice where they sell thousands of pages created by their users to spammers, fake drugs and gambling sites, online scams, etc.

10. Limited bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred from server to user browser. It costs money and most free websites come with a very limited bandwidth caps.

11. Low disk storage

Free website companies host hundreds of websites sharing same server and hard disks. They usually give you very limited storage to store your data. When you reach that limit, you are often asked to pay for more storage.

12. HTML only sites with limited number of pages

Some of these free website companies offer only a limited number of pages on your website. If you want to add more pages, you will have to upgrade to a paid plan.

13. Low credibility among your users

When your site is hosted on a free service, your users will feel less inclined to trust it. If users are not comfortable sharing their information, then it will kill the whole purpose of you creating a website.

14. You can’t run advertisements or make money

Even though your free website company runs their own ads on your website, they do not allow you to run ads or make money from your website. You will not be able to add affiliate links or add Adsense to your website.

15. There are no backups

There is no concept of regular backups on these free websites. They do not backup your data and if something bad happens to your site, there is no way for you to restore your data.

16. Difficult to get rid off

The companies offering these services often make money from content created by users like you. They intentionally make it difficult for you to delete your own website. This means your website will remain on their servers, and you will have a hard time removing it.

17. Investing time on free website is unwise

If you have any serious intention of building something on the web, then you should never start with a free website. As you have read in this article, they are unreliable, unsafe, difficult, and severely limit your growth options.

18. Limited file upload features

With paid hosting companies, you can upload unlimited files to your site using an FTP client or media uploader in WordPress. Free website companies only offer you a web based interface where you can upload one file at a time.

19. No branded email

You cannot create email accounts with your own domain name. This means you will have to use your Gmail or Hotmail email account which does not look very professional.

20. No help or customer service

These free websites offer no help to users. You will have to setup your site on your own with the help of very limited and poorly presented documentation. You are pretty much on your own if you can’t figure it out.