When thinking about starting a new WordPress website many people worry about the costs. Whether it is for a business or personal page, money is important and should not be ignored. This is why so many people are looking for free WordPress hosting today. While it is true that there are hosting providers that offer free WordPress hosting, the big question is whether it is worth it or not.
Asking whether something that is free is worth the money may sound odd, but it is an important question to ask. This is because signing up for free hosting will require that you take on a number of additional responsibilities and deal with other common issues. To determine whether or not free WordPress hosting is a good idea for your site, take a moment to think about some of these potential issues.
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Slow Service
If there is one thing that free WordPress hosting is best known for it is slow response times. This is because in order to offer free hosting, companies need to have as many sites as possible on a single server. This is commonly called ‘overselling’ a server, and results in very slow load speeds and even potential down time for your site. Most companies that offer free hosting make sure to say in their terms of service that they don’t guarantee any specific speeds or uptime on that package.
Advertisements
Some companies that offer free hosting services can offer fairly fast loading speeds. This is possible because they run advertisements on your site. These ads are often quite intrusive and can make the user experience quite poor for many people. While you technically don’t have to pay any money out of pocket, you’ll be paying through these advertisements so keep that in mind.
Poor Support
Another common issue with free WordPress hosting is that you aren’t going to get the good quality tech support you may need. Companies that only offer free hosting do everything they can to keep their costs down, and this often starts by severely limiting their technical support. Those that offer paid hosting in addition to free options will usually have tiered technical support which offers the paid customers a much better experience.
This doesn’t just mean that you’ll have to deal with poor support when there are issues, but you’ll also be responsible for all your own site management. Things like updating PHP or the operating system may not be performed by the hosting company. Even when they are, it is often done only after the updated systems have been out for a long time. This can leave your site exposed to security issues and other potential problems.
Is it Really Worth it?
These are just a few of the most significant problems associated with free WordPress hosting. For most
