Is your free web hosting provider promising you things it can't deliver

Even the most respected free web hosting provider can make promises it can't keep. While some of these promises seem harmless or insignificant, some people might argue that it is never right to mislead your customers.

Here are some of the common "misleading" promises broken.

Promise to provide Unlimited Disk Storage.
No web hosting company can provide an unlimited amount of disk storage. It is not possible. Many web hosting companies are relying on the fact that no customer actually need a huge amount of disk space. If you do, they'd advice that you've outgrown the free web hosting services and need a more expensive dedicated hosting plan.

Promise of Free Domain Names.
Domain names are not free. When you register for a domain name, a registration fee is required by the domain registry. This fee is to ensure that you have rights to use the domain name for the duration of the registration term.

If a web hosting company is giving out free domain names, it's usually under one of the following conditions:

You are beholden to the web hosting company if you want to continue to use your domain name, or
Instead of having your own domain name (ie. yourdomain.com), you're given a subdomain or subfolder under the company's domain name, ie. "http://www.thehost.com/subfolder/.../yourID"
Problems with 1) is that if you should decide you want to move to another web hosting company, you have to pay a penalty that's most often more expensive than the original cost of the domain name.

Problems with 2) includes an unprofessional, not to mention hard-to-remember, domain name, and it is not transferrable.

Promise of Free Web Hosting.
Many free web hosting companies will offer you web hosting services for free, but with forced ads plastered all over your website. Some web hosting companies will provide you with the option to remove the ads, but with a cost. Imagine how unprofessional your website would look with ads in the header, sidebar, footer, etc.

So, the next time you see a web hosting company offering free domain names, free web hosting and unlimited storage, you know what to expect - promises will be broken.

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