Free web hosting or discount web hosting?

It all depends on what your goals are with your new website venture. Lets look at the pros and cons of each.

Pros with Free Web Hosting

1. There is not a capitol investment to be made with a free web host.
2. Ability to test ideas prior to pulling out your pocketbook.

Cons with Free Web Hosting

1. You do not own the domain name. For example lets say I own FreeHost.com and I let you put up your new site RoseGarden on the site. Your website url will be RoseGarden.FreeHost.com and not what you would want to have RoseGarden.com This is what is known as a sub domain.
2. You really do not have creative control over your website. The space that you are allotted with a free host is minimal. It may work fine for a couple of pages but if you would like to expand your site then most likely run over your allotted space.
3. In most cases there will be advertisements plastered on your site that you do not have any control over. This is one of the ways your FreeHost can make money to off you the free services.
4. Most of the free hosting plans that I have seen have a set period of time that your account will remain free then you must either take your site down or convert to their paid hosting plan.
5. Search engine ranking will be all but non existent. As the search engines get better and better algorithms sub domains on free hosting accounts sink deeper into the abyss. This is a key factor because if your site is not ranked in the search engines you not see any organic traffic
6. E-mail accounts. You will not have any.  No ability to brand your site via email. ex. tom@rosegarden.com
7. Little to no customer service if you have server issues, you get what you pay for.

Paid Hosting advantages over Free Hosting.

1. Obtain your own name RoseGarden.com, it will be brand-able and you can monetize it.
2. With many discount hosting providers in the market you can certainly find a host that has all the space requirements that you will need as cheap as 4.95 monthly.
3. Since you are paying for a service you will have the creative control over which advertisers you choose to place on your site.
4. Once you obtain your hosting account you know exactly what your cost are without having to worry if the price you agreed upon will go up.
5. With proper SEO techniques you will be able to gain rankings in the search engines and watch your organic traffic grow.
6. Branded email accounts such as webmaster@RoseGarden.com
7. Customer service that will take the time to answer your questions while you are able to put your time into marketing your site.

As you may be able to gather I am not a big fan of the free hosting accounts. If you are looking to put up a simple site that contains one or two pages then they are fine. If you are going to monatize your site then I would not go with any free web hosting provider.

I currently use HostGator and DowntownHost as my providers for web hosting. I have not had any major issues with either one. This blog is hosted with HostGator. With so many different web hosting provider in the market today I suggest that you look at Hosting Incentive, they review the many different hosts and even offer coupons for many of them.