BASIC FEATURES OF FREE WEB HOSTING

Looking for a free web hosting solution is a very important decision. Try to recognize a reliable web host can be a difficult task particularly with so many service providers and options available these days. Throwing in the feature sheets and promises, the task can be that much more difficult.

But it doesn’t have to be. Some of the most common features a good free web hosting provider should offer:

DISK SPACE AND BANDWIDTH

Disk space refers to the amount of storage space assigned to us by the free web hosting provider. This space will be used to store our web site files, images, audio, including text, etc. files we use for our website.

Bandwidth refers to the quantity of traffic that is allowed to access and leave our website. Access means every time a visitor in our website types name in their browser. What leaves means is every time a visitor receives something from our website, whether it viewing a photo, downloading a file or listening to an audio clip.

Example is if our website has a lot of graphics then we will require higher storage and greater bandwidth.

WEBSITE CREATOR AND FTP

If this is our first website and we have limited or no scripting experience, then look for a free web hosting provider that offers a free website creating application where we can make our website simply by selecting a template and adding in our own text and images.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is the protocol for moving our website files from our computer to our free web hosting server, or we can say vice versa also. This allows us to upload our finished website files from our computer to our service provider’s server. It also allows us to download our files from our web hosting server back to our computer. A good free web hosting provider should offer 24/7 unrestricted FTP access.

EMAIL

Yes, our free web hosting provider should provide us with email service, so that we can setup @yourdomain.com email accounts. Also In addition to a webmail interface so that we can login and manage our emails using our web browser the email service should also include POP3 and SMTP access so we can setup and access our @yourdomain.com emails using our mobile devices.

SUPPORT AND UPTIME

We should always choose a free web hosting service with free, reliable telephone and email support.

While no host can offer a 100% guaranteed uptime they should provide just in case measures to limit website and email downtime to a minimal. These measures may contain 24/7 server and network monitoring, redundant hardware and onsite backup power supply.

PRICING

If we are looking for a free web hosting provider, then we should expect to pay absolutely nothing for all the basic characteristics listed above. We shoudn’t have to negotiation pricing with banner ads.