Starting a website can be an exciting journey, and the idea of a free website may seem irresistible.
However, non of these free web services like free hosting or free website builders are “truly free”, as the old adage “you get what you pay for” strongly applies here.
In this article, we’ll be looking at a whopping 40 reasons why a free website is a bad idea.
I’ll demystify what happens behind the scenes revealing the naked truth, leaving no stones unturned.
Reason #39 is known to be one of the major causes of hypertension in the digital space.
Let’s dive right in.
An Overview of Free Website Services
Before we proceed, let’s start by defining ‘free websites’. This is any site created using a platform that provides web hosting service without you spending a dime.
But free website is not just limited to free hosting, it also include any site using:
- The WordPress.com free plan
- Free plans from popular website builders such as Wix and Weebly
- Even Self-hosted WordPress but installed on a free host such as InfinityFree
With that out of the way, let’s see the reasons why free websites even though are cost-effective will do you more harm than good.
1. Unprofessional domain names
Free website builders often provide unprofessional subdomains, which can negatively impact your credibility and brand reputation.
A domain name like “myblog.freewebsite.com” will most likely not be taken seriously by site visitors and potential business partners.
Why should they get to work with you or use the services you recommend on your site when you don’t even have a proper domain name?
These free platforms understand these and that’s why they charge you an extra fee for a custom domain.
2. Limited design options
Free website builders offer limited design templates and customization options, restricting your ability to create a unique and visually appealing site.
This is common across all free web platforms.
- A free web host limits your design and customization options.
- Free Builder offers you just a limited custom design to work with
- Free themes are the most annoying as the limited editable design features make you feel like you’re getting choked in a box.
3. Inadequate SEO capabilities
Free website builders often lack advanced SEO tools and features, making it difficult to optimize your site for search engines and attract organic traffic.
4. Advertisements on your site
Free website hosting services and free website builders often display their ads on your site, which can detract from your content and annoy your visitors.
Worst case scenario:
Your fast-thinking competitors can pay these free website hosting companies to advertise on your site.
And guess what? You can’t complain because you’re a free user!!
Talk about them thinking out of the box when you’re getting choked …in the “box”, literally.
5. Limited storage space
Free website hosting companies typically offer limited storage space, forcing you to either delete content or upgrade to a paid plan when you reach the limit.
I’ve seen very active bloggers hit the maximum storage limit on free website hosts within their 1st month of usage.
Such work seriousness is better suited for a paid platform
Free platforms: Short-term satisfaction, long-term pain.
6. Restricted bandwidth
Free website builders often impose bandwidth restrictions, which can lead to slow page load times and poor user experience.
7. Hidden costs
Many free website builders have hidden costs associated with essential features or upgrades, making the service less “free” than it initially appears, professional liars.
8. Unreliable uptime
Free hosting companies can have unreliable uptime, resulting in frequent site downtime and lost visitors.
There are cases where your site is completely off the radar. You type in your URL and you can’t find your site.
Go take a nap and check later and your site is back. This is a common recurrence with free hosts.
At extreme moments, you just can tell which is more reliable between a blinking torchlight and a freely hosted website.
9. Difficulty in data migration
Migrating your site data from a free web hosting service to another hosting platform is usually a technical process and if you don’t do it right, you can lose all your site’s data.
Most paid hosting platforms do offer to handle site-wide migration for you depending on your hosting package.
A couple of other premium hosting platforms do assign a technical expert to guide you and provide you with the much-needed resources to make the migration a seamless process.
Some high-quality web hosts like SiteGround go the extra mile by offering their in-house built tool, a WordPress Automatic Migrator intended to get the job done with just a single click.
With free web hosts, you’re left to do it all yourself with no support from the hosting company.
Just like someone stranded by the ocean, a non-techy fellow might find all these complexities overwhelming.
10. Lack of control over your site
It’s your site but it’s really not your site.
Free web hosts and free website builders often restrict your ability to add features such as affiliate links, Google Analytics tracking codes, or Adsense, limiting your site’s functionality and monetization potential.
11. Security vulnerabilities
Free website hosts often lack robust security measures, making your site more susceptible to hacking attempts and data breaches.
12. Poor customer support
When issues arise with your free website, you’ll certainly struggle to find timely and effective customer support, leaving you to troubleshoot issues on your own or rely on community forums for assistance.
13. Data ownership concerns
Free website builders may retain ownership of your site’s data, making it difficult to fully control or protect your content.
14. Difficulty in optimizing for mobile devices
With the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, it’s essential to have a responsive website.
Free website builders may not offer adequate tools or templates for optimizing your site for mobile viewing, leading to poor user experiences on smartphones and tablets.
15. Limited feature set
Free website builders often have a restricted set of features, forcing you to compromise on functionality and user experience.
16. Inability to scale
As your business grows, you may find that the limitations of free website builders and free web hosts make it difficult to expand your site and meet your needs.
17. Potential data privacy issues
Free website builders may collect and sell your personal information to third parties, compromising your privacy.
Always remember this rule of thumb: “If you’re not paying for the product, then you’re the product”.
18. Inadequate website backup options
Regular website backups are crucial for safeguarding your site’s data.
Free website hosting companies do not offer reliable or automated backup solutions, putting your website at risk in the event of data loss or technical issues.
19. Difficulty integrating third-party tools
Free website builders often have limited integration options with third-party tools, restricting your ability to enhance your site’s functionality.
Regardless of how simple you want your site to be, you’d always need third-party tools at certain advanced growth levels.
20. No dedicated support for e-commerce
Many free website builders and free web hosts lack eCommerce features, making it difficult to sell products or services on your site.
With free platforms, you will never get the necessary tools for managing e-commerce transactions, inventory, or customer data, making it difficult to create a professional online store.
22. Restricted access to basic essential plugin
Free website services often limit access to essential plugins, limiting your ability to add functionality and features to your site.
23. Restricted access to premium plugins and extensions
Not just basic essential plugins, free web platforms also restrict access to premium plugins and extensions, which can provide essential functionality and improve user experience.
These premium tools are all available to your competitors using paid platforms.
24. Limited multimedia support
Many free website builders provide limited multimedia support, restricting your ability to showcase images, videos, or audio content effectively.
25. Inflexible site structure
Free website builders often impose rigid site structures, limiting your ability to organize and present your content in the most effective way.
26. No custom email addresses
Free website builders usually do not offer custom email addresses, forcing you to use generic email services that may appear unprofessional to clients or customers.
27. Negative impact on branding
Using a free website service can negatively impact your brand image, as visitors may associate the limitations and unprofessional appearance of your site with your overall brand quality.
28. Restrictive file type support
Free web services may limit the types of files you can upload and use on your site, hindering your ability to incorporate various multimedia elements, like certain video or audio formats.
29. Lack of integration with marketing tools
Many free website builders may not support integration with popular marketing tools, such as email marketing platforms or CRM software.
We can’t overstate how important marketing is to business growth.
Such limitations can make it challenging to manage and optimize your marketing efforts effectively.
30. Limited access to website analytics
Analyzing your website’s performance is crucial for growth and optimization.
Free website platforms may not offer comprehensive analytics tools or may limit access to critical data, making it difficult to understand and improve your site’s performance.
31. Restricted access to third-party APIs
Most free website platforms do not support integration with third-party APIs, limiting your ability to add useful features and functionality to your site, like social media feeds, interactive maps, or weather widgets.
32. Limited collaboration features
Free web services do not offer collaboration features, making it challenging to work with team members or external partners on your site.
This limitation can slow down your website’s development and make it difficult to keep content up-to-date.
33. Inability to create a multilingual website
Expanding your online presence to varying international audiences requires a multilingual website.
Free website hosting companies lack the necessary tools or features to create and manage a website in multiple languages, limiting your global reach.
34. Limited user access control
Managing user access and permissions is essential for maintaining website security and organization.
Free hosting platforms often lack advanced user access controls, making it difficult to assign roles and responsibilities to team members effectively.
For example, people using paid web hosts do have WordPress.org, which is the premium WordPress version automatically downloaded onto their hosting cPanel.
With this premium WordPress, you can create multiple users on your site, these can be your colleagues that work with you on your site.
You also get to assign roles to given users.
These roles are needed to help limit changes they can make on your site.
While an Administrator can edit and make changes to every single part of your site, a contributor can make just a few changes permitted by you in the Admin dashboard.
A day before publishing this article, I wanted to make some custom changes to this site but I was already occupied with other tasks.
Thinking about it right now, I was creating the 1st written draft of the article you’re reading right now.
So I called on a tech colleague to help get it done and created new user login details for the task.
Such user flexibility control is very limited on free platforms.
A quality paid WordPress theme like DIVI goes the extra mile by letting you edit and limit the types of actions that can be taken by WordPress users of different assigned roles at a single glance.
35. Poor accessibility features
Creating an accessible website is vital for reaching users with disabilities and ensuring compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Free website builders may not provide adequate tools or templates for building an accessible site, potentially excluding a significant portion of your audience.
36. No dedicated IP address and Extremely Slow Speed
Free website builders typically do not provide dedicated IP addresses, meaning that your website shares an IP address with other websites on the same server.
Most free website hosting providers put hundreds of websites sharing the same server.
This makes all their websites load at very low speeds. Slow websites create a bad user experience and are bad for SEO.
37. Limited custom code capabilities
Advanced users may want to add custom code to their websites for additional functionality or design elements.
Free website builders often restrict or limit the ability to add custom code, hindering your site’s potential for unique features and customizations.
As an SEO expert ardent in web development, I work with lots of custom codes.
Even if you’re not a developer, there are times when you might wish to have a certain feature on your site for a particular purpose.
And even if you get a developer to prepare the custom code for you, you still can’t implement it on your site because you’re on a free platform.
Paid platforms provide you with all the essential custom codes you need to get going.
You’ll also be working with a couple of custom codes during site verifications, Pinterest verification, Social media integrations and much more.
A lot of essentials are left unattended to when using free web services.
38. Cookie-cutter design templates
Free website builders typically offer a limited selection of design templates, leading to many websites created with these platforms looking the same.
They mostly have one look, one pattern with common basic styles.
This cookie-cutter approach to design can make it difficult for your site to stand out denting your brand identity.
39. Risk of service discontinuation (Website Shutdown)
Free web hosts can discontinue their services without any prior notice probably because the hosting provider goes out of business or runs low on finance.
Their terms and conditions, which no one read (obviously), provide them with total legal immunity.
Your web host can also choose to delete your website, completely removing your website from the internet.
In such events, you lose years of hard work invested in your site.
Usually, this happens due to lack of payment or violation of terms.
Not to mention, free web hosting platforms do have a lot of rules and regulations pertaining to how you use their services and the actions you take on your site.
As a result, you can easily violate their terms without you knowing.
Free web host users often try to be extra careful, waking up every day, praying they haven’t done something wrong that will make them lose their site.
40. No ownership of your content
When using a free web platform, you may not have full ownership of your content.
The provider may have the right to use, modify, or even delete your content without your consent.
This lack of control over your own content can be a significant drawback for businesses and individuals who value their intellectual property.
By considering these 40 reasons, it becomes clear that opting for free web hosting or free web services like free web builder may not be the best choice for your online presence.
Final Thoughts From Stanley U – Website Hurdles Founder
While the idea of a free website might seem tempting, the risks and limitations far outweigh the benefits.
Investing in a paid platform will give you all the much-needed resources to build a solid brand.
The truth is..
People scout the internet for free web services, not because they aren’t aware of the impending issues on free services but just because they really don’t have the budget yet to afford quality services. If they do, they would certainly go for the best without compromise.
This was my case years back when starting out and if this is your current predicament then I’ve something good for you.
There are some quality cheap web hosting whose price is next to nothing.
A perfect example is Bluehost.
Bluehost is one of the 3 best global web host but it has won the hearts of many because it’s relatively cheap compared to others.
With as low as the price of a cup of coffee per month, you can get your site up and running.
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