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FREE WEB HOSTS AND ADVERTISING

One of the things you will notice when searching through the free web hosts is that they nearly all make money through advertising on the pages. If they don't there is usually a catch somewhere such as very little bandwidth or the server being set up to allow next to no visitors on your page. You will find the following options when you search for your host:-

No advertising at all
Banner advertisements across the page
Banner advertisements and pop up windows
Pop up windows (quite often you find that several windows pop up at once with these hosts)
A choice between banner advertisements and pop up windows on every page
A choice between banner advertisements, pop up windows on every page or one pop up window per visit by the user, which gives the option of signing up to receive newsletters via e-mail

First of all let's look at the hosts which state they offer free web space with no advertising. This is nearly always part of a free ISP and nowadays you almost always have to be connected to the Internet via the host's server to upload to the web space. The only two that don't that I know of force you to do this, have distinct limitations on bandwidth - one allows you 16.7 mb per day of bandwidth with a maximum of 500 mb per month, the other allows you 100 mb per month with a maximum of 75 visitors on your site at any one time. Both create problems for your visitors so unless you know you are going to have only a few visitors you may wish to avoid these services.

One form of advertising which is not always so intrusive is banner advertisements. These are usually across the top of each page you put up and the one disadvantage of this is that if you have used a frameset for your web site, the banner will show up in every page of your frameset. Quite often these advertisements are animated which can be distracting but in the best situation they are merely advertising the services of your host which I find quite acceptable. One or two web hosts will put more than one banner across your page, usually one at the top and one at the bottom. Again this is usually stated in the FAQs or Terms and Conditions.

Quite a number of free web hosts use pop ups for their advertising, one of the most despised ways of using advertisements on the Internet today. Many of these pop up windows are extremely persistent and have been set up in a way that will force them to the front of the window every time the user clicks! In addition you frequently get several at once and they are known to crash user's browsers if they try to shut them down before your page has finished loading. They will usually appear on every page of your site.

Another combination which users particularly dislike is a banner advertisement across your page AND pop up window advertisements. This can really destroy your page and again is known for crashing people's browsers. One to avoid unless you absolutely have to use it.

The best option by far is that offered by hosts where you can choose the type of advertising you want. This may be a choice of either a banner advertisement or a pop up window and the very best of all give you a choice in the type of pop ups. The latter is usually a choice between pop ups on every page of your site or an e-mail newsletter advertisement which will appear once per visit and then not show up again.

I have to say that there are two advantages to the pop up window system. One is that your own pages are not disfigured by the advertisements. The other is that you can use a frameset if you want to.

Most free web hosts will delete a site if the file manager or FTP system is not accessed within a certain period of time (and it usually says they will do this in their FAQs) so if you take one look at your pages when you've put them up and decide then and there to move elsewhere, it won't matter about your account.

The other thing to remember is that all of the free web hosts have Terms of Service which state that if you interfere in any way with the advertisement (for example using Javascript to force the pop up windows behind your pages) you are in breach of their Terms and Conditions and they will delete your site without warning.

Finally, if you do move your site about a lot you may want to buy a domain name. You can point the domain name anywhere you want and move your site as much as you like, people will always be able to access it via the domain name. And once you've bought the domain name it's yours until it expires.