The caveats of free blog hosting
posted: Wednesday 09 September 2009 by Daniel Foster in: Web Hosting Wordpress Hosting
Blogs are all the rage these days. It seems like everyone and their dog has one. Not able to justify the expense of web hosting, many new bloggers have turned to free hosts specially designed for blogs only. While it’s a good way for some to save money, there are a number of reasons why a serious blogger should never host on a free service.
1. No domains allowed
No matter how well-read your site is, you will always be stuck on a subdomain. Most free blog hosts do not allow domain names. This is not only an inconvenience, but means all backlinks will point to the subdomain given to you by your provider. For instance, if Nancy wanted to move to a paid host and register nancysblog.com, she would find that she lost all the links and visitors to her freely hosted site, nancytoday.freebloghost.com.
2. No ads allowed
Check the requirements of your free provider. Some large notable hosts do allow users to display their own advertisements, but many place restrictions on the type of ads and how many you can place on your blog.
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3. You could be a billboard for someone else’s ad
Even worse, some free blog hosts will make you display their ads on your page in order to pay for the service.
4. Freely hosted blogs aren’t professional.
If you are serious about blogging, then shelling out a few pounds each month for a real web host shouldn’t be a big deal.
5. Overcome limitations
A paid web host will give you more privileges and features, such as greater control over themes, layout customization, plug-ins, and general site administration. Most free services severely limit what their users can do for security reasons.
Photo | clix
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alola
10 Nov 2009 - 06:06 - #1These points may be true in general, but 2, 3, and 4 are not an issue with Blogger (aka Blogspot) hosed blogs. I would say most blogs, or at least a plurality of blogs, are hosted here, and it is very customizable. One can have 0 or a million ads if one so chooses, and there is no limit on how professional or unprofessional you can design your blog. That really depends on the person, not the host. God knows there are many crappy blogs with their own domains.
I do not work for Blogger, but I use the service and am very pleased with the design, traffic, and revenue of my blog.
daniel-foster
11 Nov 2009 - 19:17 - #2Thanks for the comment. There are a lot of good quality blogs out there on Blogger, but I would still say that the vast majority of “pro blogs” are hosted externally on a domain.
Free blog services are fine for starting out, but I know for a fact that companies are less likely to advertise on a freely hosted subdomain blog and prefer a site with an established domain.
If I owned a site making any substantial revenue I would want to have total control over it. Blogger may be doing a great job now, but what about 5 or 10 years from now? Once your blog is established at a free provider, it is hard to move without losing all of your links and a good chunk of traffic.