Part Time Webmaster Blog

Yes, you can host your website for free. And, it doesn’t have to be a plain old site. You can host your website for free even if you use tools such as WordPress. But, as with all free things, there is usually some cost involved, granted, it may not be an out of pocket expense.

The initial question is “How come I get it for free?” After all, nothing in business is free. Well, hosting companies compensate for this initial loss in a couple ways as follows:

• ALWAYS: No matter what, the hosting company will post ads to your website. This way, they recieve money from new customers, pay-per-click campaigns, or affiliate marketing programs. It’s pretty smart actually. Consider this, all of the people you attract to your website are potential customers.
• They may ask you to purchase something such as a domain name. This way, they did make some money.
• The free hosting may be for a trial period. So, they’ll get money from you eventually.
• If you install software, there may be some limitations. For example, there could be limited fuctionality that you won’t know about until you test out the site.
• They hope that you’ll get frustrated with the ads and actually buy hosting.

If any of these things offend you, you may want to consider paying for hosting. Today, hosting is not that expensive, for example, you can host a site for less than $40 a year. But, if you are looking to test the waters, why not try it before you spend the money. After all, all of the hosting companies will allow you to switch over to an ad free site easily.

We’ve taken some time to track down several hosting companies that will offer free hosting with your domain. Granted, the hosting may be a do it yourself website. NOTE: In most, if not all, cases, the free hosting is a do it yourself website package, or they allow you to install packages such as Wordpress for free. Don’t expect that you will be able to register or transfer your domain name, then upload your entire site via ftp.

List of Free Website Hosting Companies (with domain name purchase):

• GoDaddy
  With each GoDaddy domain you get the GoDaddy photo album, quick blogcast, hosting, personalized email account, starter web page, “For Sale” page, parked page, getting started guide, domain forwarding and masking, 100 pack email forwarding, total DNS control, change of registration, status alerts, domain locking, and more.
• 1 AND 1
  With each 1and1 domain, you get free private domain registration, host unlimited 1&1 domans, 5 subdomains, 5 host external domains, DNS management, domain forwarding, URL masking, domain contact management, domain access with or without www, 1 email account, supported by IMAP & POP3, 2GB of mailbox space, 200 email aliases, email auto-responder, email forwarding, catch all email addresses, optional spam filter, 1&1 Starter website builder, 1&1 control panel, simple submissions for SEO, and phone support.
• Aplus.net
  With each domain, you get a starter page, email address, and 100 email forwarders.
• JumplineJumpline offers domain control, email forwarding 5 POP email addresses, webmail client, and site builder.

What do we recommend? We recommend both GoDaddy and FastDomain.
Why? Both of these offer you the ability to set up a website now. So, if you’re just looking to get your name out and put up something quick these solutions are easy and quick. They also will allow you to upgrade when you’re ready.
If you happen to know of any more, please let us know. It took a while to track these guys down.