Free web hosting is more suitable for personal site/blog which is not very busy or utilize too much server resources. Is definitely not a good idea to start a serious business site on free web hosting. You do not want to wake up next morning and your site is gone, suspended for no reason or experience horrible downtime. Free web hosting companies usually provides very limited server resources to each user and will often experience server cpu or database errors due to the limitations. It is best to get a paid host for serious and authority site, but for whatever reasons you need a free host please go through the pointers I listed below before you choose that particular free web hosting company.Pointers to take note when choosing free web hosting company:
1. Avoid host that provides unlimited space and bandwidth, usually you will get very limited server resources and face a lot of server error issues with this kind of free hosting.
2. Choose host who provides at least 2gb space with 20-50gb bandwidth, at least 2 mysql databases, no ads, 5 sub/addon domains, phpMyAdmin, php 5.2+, client FTP, autoinstaller scripts (optional), some form of backups and reasonable support time respond.
3. Checkout their forums (if any) and see under the support forum, check whether there are multiple threads in the first few pages with topics like "my website suspended", "why my site got suspended?", "cannot access my website", "database errors", "cpu limited errors", "unable to login", "no support for so long". Forum is a good way to see how the company run the hosting service, avoid this free hosting if you see topics stated above.
4. Do a whois search on the site/domain and find out how long have they been providing free hosting service, usually I will not go for free host which is less than a year.
5. Read the free host TOS carefully about their limitation (how much shared resources you can use, hits per day etc..), if not stated you can always send a support ticket/email to clear out your doubts. Wait and see how fast they respond to your questions, this is one good way to judge the support respond time.
6. Once you found an ok free host and start uploading files to the server, checkout the uploading and download speed. Test your site using tools.pingdom.com, your static 500kb size page should not load more than 2 seconds. Test a few times to get constant results.
7. Keep loading your site (with mysql database created) for few minutes non-stop and see if you get any cpu limit or database connection errors. If possible, ask your friends to test it out with you concurrently loading the site.
8. Use a free site monitoring service like UptimeRobot.com to monitor your site for at least 30 days, server uptime should not be less than 98% monthly. Downtime will hurt your SEO ranking, so make you sure you get a stable free host. Read this good info about downtime provide by wikipedia.
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Here is the lists of 10 free web hosting companies:
1. Neq3 Hosting - (Venus plan) 10gb disk space, 100gb bandwidth, mysql databases, email accounts, auto script installer, cron jobs, no ads.
2. 888webhost - 20gb disk space, 200gb bandwidth, 10 mysql databases, unlimited email accounts, auto script installer, no ads.
3. Dhmart -10gb disk space, 100gb bandwidth, 10 mysql databases, 10 email accounts, no ads.
4. Zymic - 6gb disk space, 50gb bandwidth, 3 mysql databases, no email account, no ads.
5. Getfreehosting - 10gb disk space, 100gb bandwidth, 10 mysql databases, no email account, auto script installer, no ads.
6. 2freehosting - 20gb disk space, 150gb bandwidth, 10 mysql databases, 10 email accounts, auto script installer, no ads.
7. Serversfree - 10gb disk space, 100gb bandwidth, 5 mysql databases, 5 email accounts, auto script installer, no ads.
8. Freehosting - 10gb disk space, 100gb bandwidth, 5 mysql databases, 5 email accounts, auto script installer, no ads.
9. U Host Full - 20gb disk space, 200gb bandwidth, mysql databases, email accounts, auto script installer, cron jobs, no ads.
10. 000a.biz - 11gb disk space, 400gb bandwidth, mysql databases, no email account, auto script installer, cron jobs, no ads.
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All the best in finding your good free web hosting. When your site gets more busy and popular, it is always advisable to get a stable reliable paid host.
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