Getting a free website can be very tempting. Free website hosting is offered by many companies out there. There is always a catch, though. Don’t you think everyone would use a free website otherwise? Below are 22 reasons why getting a free website is a bad idea and how using one can have major consequences for your business.

1. Speeds that are Extremely Slow: This is due to having too many websites sharing a single server.
2. Domain Names that are Unprofessional: If you don’t pay for a custom website name, you will get one that will likely turn off your potential customers.
3. “Free” Trial Services aren’t Free: You will be asked to pay after only a short amount of time for the services.
4. Hidden Charges: Since every business needs to make money, including these web hosting companies, there will be charges for services provided, such as image hosting, email accounts, etc.
5. Your Data Can Be Locked: When you decide to move your website to a paid service, you may find that your data is locked and you must pay a fee to use it.
6. Advertisements that are Irrelevant: A Lot of the “free” services earn revenue through advertisements. These can be annoying and intrusive, and may even compete against your business.
7. Your Website can be Shut Down: Most of these services can shut down your website without reason, per their terms and conditions.
8. Your Information may be Sold: Many of these companies will sell your website address and personal information to other companies to make money. This is also in their terms and conditions.
9. Your Business Could Be Listed in a Link Farm: Link farms are typically used by those wanting to host sites that are unethical, such as gambling sites, online scams, and more.
10. Bandwidth is Limited: Using bandwidth costs money, so these services will limit how much you can use.
11. Disk Storage is Low: the services will provide you with a very low amount of storage, and ask for payments to increase it.
12. Website is Vulnerable: because of the poor security, your site will be more vulnerable to hackers.
13. Design Choices are Limited: free websites will not allow you to use your own designs.
14. Gives Your Business Low Credibility: many customers do not trust sites built on these hosts.
15. No Customer Service: you are on your own.
16. No Backups: If your site crashes, you are out of luck
17. No analytics or statistics: well, unless you want to pay for it.
18. No Mobile Device Support: free websites don’t give you the option to update your website from a mobile device.
19. No Responsive Designs: their designs are usually outdated.
20. No Email Branding: instead, you must use a nonprofessional one, such as Gmail.
21. No Email Forwards of Contact Forms: unless, again, you want to pay for it.
22. Limited Features for Uploading Files: you can only upload one at a time.

As you can see, it is better for any business to go with a paid service over a free one.  Contact an experienced and trusted website design company like RedWave Technology to avoid any of the issues above.  You can click here to view our website design features or you can click here to fill out a questionnaire for a free quote.