One of the most important step in starting a blog is getting a space (hosting) to put your blog. Just like you want to build a house, you surely know you will need a plot of land where your building will be located. Same thing apply to blog here, you need an hosting (either free or paid).
I prefer paid hosting to Free hosting. I know you will ask why. Here are my reasons:
Advert by the hosting company
Almost all of free hosting company places advert on there free host which will reflect on the websites hosted under the company.
According to them, this is for the compensation of the free host they offer you. This is not really bad tho, but some free host company advert may appear where you will not be comfortable with as the owner of the website/blog, some of the ads disfigure the entire website interface which will become annoying as time goes on.
This result in to why some website owner’s uses css or JavaScript to hide the company’s advert, which will later result in blocking/deletion of hosting space if later discovered by the company.
Free hosting company uses text, banner and also popup advert which is the most annoying of all, compared to paid hosting, you can’t experience all these.
If you are using paid hosting and your website do show ads which is not your doing, you have the right to question your hosting company, that’s not the case in free hosting.
Blocking/Deletion of hosting
This is very common among free hosting companies. Inactive website will be deleted. If your website is inactive for 2 or more weeks, all your files, data etc will be deleted.
During those days when i was still using free hosting, i have lost many important files due to these, unlike paid hosting, no matter how long you didn’t update, your website/blog will still be active and your files intact, so far it hasn’t expired.
No quick solution to problems or errors
Yes! free hosting company respond slow to fixing any problem, error on the host. This can sometimes piss most people off.
It takes weeks/months before error can be corrected or fixed on free hosting. A good example is the recent FTP problem that occurred.
90% of free hosting companies FTP isn’t working for couple of months back, Yes couple of months and there was still no solution to it.
Reverse is when talking about paid hosting. Once a problem is encountered, contact support or customer service and they will get it fixed ASAP.
Difference in features
Some feature in paid hosting aren’t available on free hosting. Examples are add-on domain features, webmail, etc. Even Some of the scripts in auto installer on free-hosting isn’t updated like wordpress, joomla etc. Another reason for you to use paid-hosting for smooth running of your blog/website without any headache.
TIP: Some free blogging platform is better and preferable to use (e.g blogspot) for those that can’t afford to buy paid host.
