To create a successful and profitable site, first of all, you need to have the desire and set yourself up for fairly long and time-consuming work. In addition to the desire and diligence, you will need some money to order a hosting service and register a domain name. But, there is another possibility to create a site with the help of available free services, such as Ucoz and many others.
Of course, the ability to have your resource without paying anything attracts many Internet users. And to create your first personal page or test site, a free domain and hosting will work best. But if you consider in more detail all the advantages and disadvantages of free sites, you come to the consensus that a free site is not suitable for creating a serious and most importantly profitable site.
Here are some of the pros and cons that characterize a free website
- Using a free site will make it very difficult for you to promote it. Topical directories, links from which add to your site “weight and authority” (which promotes), usually refuse to register sites with a free domain or hosting. A free website is distrustful, and if you are building a business relationship, there should be no suspicion or mistrust. For example, if you want to create an online store, then, of course, a free site is not suitable for this, because people will not buy goods from you, for fear of entrusting their money.
- If suddenly something happens with free hosting, there are some problems, then you will not be able to change the provider, keeping the entire audience of the site, as the domain will not be yours. That is, you have to start all over again from scratch. Therefore, of course, the inability to switch to another hosting is one of the biggest disadvantages of a free site.
- Using a free site, no one will be able to guarantee the security and safety of all components of your site, because there is usually no backup of data. Only good paid hosting can guarantee you the safety of your data because a good hosting provider saves all available data on another server daily to be able to restore all sites without any loss, in case something happens to the main working server.
- If you decide to create a free site, you can forget about technical support immediately. Most owners of their free sites already know that in case of any interruptions in the work or complete unavailability of the site, it is simply impossible to access the technical support of free hosters. It is very important to have a well-established connection with your provider for the smooth operation of the site.
- The free site is very poorly indexed by search engines, and some of them are not indexed at all. This fact has a very negative effect on the success of website promotion. After all, Internet search engines have been and remain the main source of website traffic. And if the site is not indexed or indexed catastrophically slowly, the traffic to such a resource will be very low.
- Another significant disadvantage of a site created for free is its template appearance. That is, we do not have to talk about quality design here. But on the Internet, as well as among people, meet on clothes.
- The advantage of free sites, but, unfortunately, it is only one – free, ie the ability to create a site without investing money.
Details about the possibilities of a free site
Free domain name
The domain is probably the most important component of the site.
If you can easily change the “stupid” hosting or change the boring design of the site, then replacing the domain name will lose everything gained by hard work – the authority of the site for search engines and the promotion of a new domain will have to start again.
Plus a free domain – savings on registration of about $ 20 per year (depending on the zone).
Now about the cons. Third-level domains are usually offered for free. Such domain names can be cumbersome and long. Also, your site will depend on the owner of the second-level domain under which you are, and in this case, there will be difficulties with changing hosting. Some enthusiast projects start as non-profit and it doesn’t seem to make sense to spend any money on buying a domain name. But over time, they will gain popularity and begin to make a profit not only from advertising.
“Free” registration or renewal of the second-level domain can be provided by some servers this cost is already included in their not the cheapest hosting and this is not about free. Also, if you want to leave them in the future, it may be difficult to pick up your domain name. No host will release their client if they have registered a domain for themselves. Of course, you will take away your domain, but you will waste your nerves and time.
Free hosting
Progress does not stand still, with each passing year technology becomes cheaper and the placement of the site on the Internet becomes more accessible. Free hosting offers are growing like mushrooms after radioactive rain. The benefit, of course, is one – you do not need to pay for hosting, the cost of which can reach up to $ 100 per year, or even higher (depending on the needs of the site). But the shortcomings, albeit small – but much more.
The main ones are the placement of mandatory advertising on the pages of your site, limiting the size of the site, and the size of downloads. Your site will be a cheap platform for advertising and promoting others.
At a minimum, your visitors can be distracted or annoyed by mandatory advertising, and at most – they will follow the advertising links to other resources. But you will also want to place your advertising banners … Usually, these free diseases can be partially or completely cured for $ 60-100 per year – that is, pay for “free” hosting. Servers that provide such a service, to save money, do not rush to increase their capacity and are often overloaded. This server load will at best lead to slow page opening and a negative reaction from visitors, and at worst – the unavailability of the site for users and search engines.
Although you will not have guarantees of information retention and hosting performance, modern servers are quite reliable and fatal failures are rare. Much more often you will need to deal with small current issues related to the site, but technical support may be formal (if any).
The service of such hosting can be provided with free templates, site designer, and third-level domain (ie with everything that is somehow needed for the site). Despite the shortcomings, this service allows you to easily try yourself as a site owner, create, for example, a home page, and if necessary, move on to paid quality services.
I have nothing against Ucoz, but availability creates a viral epidemic of clone sites with stolen information, “pyramid” schemes, multilevel (network) marketing (MLM), promising Internet earning systems, e-mail businesses, and other spam. (in order to develop immunity against this information garbage, you need to get sick 🙂 Therefore, the information posted on free hosting does not cause much trust. The free hosting service is quite suitable for a small non-profit site or home page. But for a significant commercial project, hosting on such hosting, if possible, will not inspire confidence in the company.
Support
Nowadays, almost everyone can create a site on the designer. It is much more difficult to ensure the efficiency of such a resource, compliance with your expectations, convenient work of visitors to the site.
In the case of individual (paid) sites, you receive guaranteed quality technical support from the developer and host. If you use a free template, then from the beginning you will have to spend a lot of time setting up the site yourself, look for answers in the forums or seek the services of a specialist. The choice between money and time – everyone decides what is more expensive for him.
Do you need a free website and hosting?
Despite all these disadvantages of a free site, the final answer depends on what you intend to do on the Internet in the next few years.
If we are talking about blogs to express their opinions and find fans, without plans to monetize the project, a free platform is quite suitable. If the project does not earn, why invest in it?
But for a business for which a website is a business card or a window into the boundless world of e-commerce, it is worth thinking about a full-fledged design and reliable hosting.