Free or Paid Blog & Hosting ?

• What are differences between blog and website
• How can you chose your blog theme and name of the blog

What is website hosting?

Hosting is the space on internet where we store all the files elated to your blog. There are several different companies which provide you cheap and reliable hosting to store files. Hosting companies (Also known as ‘hosting servers’) have several computers with some specific softwares and hardware which control all the customers’ blog files. Those computers are connected with internet and when your site visitor type your website domain name on browser, user computer fetch detail from hosting computer and display data. It’s the internet who connects everything.

With the free blogging at blogger or WordPress, you will get free hosting. You can also buy paid webhosting for more features.

What is domain name?

Visit our page about domain name and naming your domain name. Also see what is sub-domain. Briefly, domain name is the web address of your website which direct users computer browser to hosing computer and get your website content to display on user computer screen.

What is bandwidth?

Bandwidth in internet language means, allowable traffic to your website by hosting server. Example, bandwidth is like road and your visitors are like cars. If you have limited road lane, and your visits traffic increase, moving traffic will slow down because of traffic. Similarly, if people visits increase on your website and your bandwidth is limited then your website will go down or slow down.

With free hosting it’s hard to get unlimited bandwidth, which is required for successful business and blogs. But with paid hosting you can get unlimited bandwidth and run your blog on full speed.

Above are the main components of the website. Other than that you might use some designing software or connectivity softwares to design and transfer files from your computer to hosting server.

Free Hosting and Free Domain

At present, you can get free domains and free hosting provided by several online website. For example www.blogger.com is the blogging website and when you register there you get your domain name which is actually consisting of the sub domain like www.yourchosenname.blogspot.com. Free domain name always attached with hosting company domain name. Generally to have free domain you need to have an account with some online hosting company. But remember, nothing is free in the world. With free domain you still have to pay the price. Go through the following advantages and disadvantages of the free blogging and the compare it with the paid blogging.

Advantages of free domain name:

1. Easy to registered new account. Nothing to pay.
2. Get sub-domain name for free (not the full domain name).
3. In built templates and designing tools (Limited features). Beginners can use them to create a quick blog or website.
4. No maintenance. No knowledge of code required.

Disadvantages of free domain name:

1. First big disadvantage with free webhosting is sub domain name. Usually if you see around, a professional and serious blogs doesn’t looks like sub domain. That is, they have their own domain name registered. Having your own domain name will make your credibility in front of users. People will trust you more.
2. You can also get your domain name on free hosting company by paying yearly small amount. But you should see the bigger picture. Later if you plan to extend the website with the paid hosting, (which I know you will if you are serious about website or blog) it will be really big headache for you to transfer all the content from free to paid.
3. You have limitations to manipulate the designs according to your requirements.
4. Limited bandwidth. With limited bandwidth your website will go down if traffic increases more than allowable bandwidth.
5. Search engine always prefer blogs or websites hosted at their own servers i.e. paid hosts.
6. Limited to customizations. You are not allowed to change code of templates. You cannot add any script for new features. (you can download free scripts for desired function from internet e.g. http://www.gentlesource.com/)
7. You cannot believe in forever existence of the companies who host for free. If they decide to stop the free service, all of your data will be lost; moreover you will lose the precious traffic which you have build on your domain name. In Past, Yahoo did this by stopping 360 degree and Geocities.
8. Limited web pages
9. Free hosting will not provide you brand name email address like youremail@yourdomain.com
10. Advertisement banners or popup will show on your blog even if you don’t want it. And worse is, you will not get a damn from revenue generated from those advertisements. That’s how free hosting company make money.
11. Another big disadvantage is, free hosting does not provide any kind of support or very poor support.

Paid Hosting and Paid Domain name

Looking at big picture here, if you want to build your blog professional and seriously we always recommend buying domain name with paid hosting. You just pay small amount of fees for amazing features which you should utilize to enhance your blog power. Also with paid hosting you will get peace of mind, by having power to modify your blog template (design) and functionality. To explain more let’s see advantages and disadvantages of paid hosting and domain:

Disadvantages

1. User need to buy domain name and hosting space on server.
2. Might need some knowledge of the codes and designing.
3. Might need to buy a template, software or get designer to design.
4. Need maintenance.

Advantages

1. Your own domain name, which Build credibility and trust in front of users.
2. Provide infinite opportunity to customize your blog and make it unique. You can add any script of codes to the blog for extraordinary features.
3. You can change template, buy and implement new templates.
4. Add your own codes or banners for affiliate marketing, or advertisement.
5. If your blog is famous, sell space for advertisement and generate revenue.
6. Provide unlimited bandwidth.
7. Get backup every day.
8. Your own branded email address like youremail@yourdomain,com.
9. No advertisement shown by hosting company. You can show up your own advertisement.
10. Wonderful website support, 24/7, email and phone support. Believe me you will love the support you get from ixwebhosting.com

We will keep on updating you about the benefits of paid web hosting. If you just want to have a feel of website and do not want to do anything seriously, then you can chose free webhosting at Blogger or WordPress. But if you want to have a business to build up or a valuable blog, then we will strongly recommend having a paid webhosting at ixwebhosting. Our website is also hosted on ixwebhosting and we love its 24/7 email and phone support.