The ability for an organization to get their message on the web is incredibly important in business. However not every company or group has the necessary funds to purchase the services of a web host. That’s where free web hosting services come in. Be definition they do not charge the client anything up front, so it’s a win for the client organization. The advantages to having a web presence for a business are well know but community organizations (food pantries, fire halls etc) also need to have a presence because of the abilities for fund-raising, group communication and co-ordination.

The communication and coordination abilities allowed by a website give a strong value-added component to any organization. To use a food pantry for example, they can use their website to.

1.Complete call lists for monetary donations, they can
2.Keep members in touch with each other more easily (and allow for for more information to be sent)
3.Keep the public aware of them
4.Garner support in certain times of year (like canned food drives)
5.Issue bulletins and press releases

All of which makes having a web site a valuable tool to have.

So free web hosting provides a needed service to clients who either cannot or are unwilling to pay more. That being said there are some drawbacks. For example, if they don’t charge anything up front how do they make a profit? They usually make it off of advertising on the page. These can come in the form of ; banner ads which are at the top and or bottom (and sometimes in the margins on the side), to pop-ups which come up right over the page and pop-unders which most users dont realize is there until they close the window. This is good because then the host has a vested interest in ensuring that your site is well-maintained and operating properly, but it can have a few repercussions for the user. Basically people don’t want to see advertisements, and if they’re being bombarded with them then they won’t stay on the page nor will they return to it.

Another partial drawback is disk space and bandwidth usage. Free web hosting sites oftentimes have a cap on how much bandwidth can be used in a given time-frame (per day/week/month). If you’ve got a graphics heavy website or are expecting a lot of traffic, your site could shut down due to overuse of the bandwidth. This could put a serious crimp in your business operations or group communications. Not to mention if you outgrow the service then you would have to move everything which has a large cost, in time and effort if not always in funds.

In the end it comes down to budget. If there is a steady cash flow for a web presence, then a cheap web hosting alternative should probably be used. However if the cash flow is erratic or nonexistent, then a free web hosting service is what you will need, and in the end it will not only do the job for you but do it well.