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There are free web hosts abound on the Internet. Search on Google for "free web host" and you will see what I'm talking about. Yet they are not all created equally! There are several types of free web hosts, three of which I will describe below, and each has its own positives and negatives.

The first type of free web host, becoming increasingly popular these days, is the free blog. Three examples of this are - http://www.wordpress.com, http://www.blogger.com, and http://www.clearblogs.com. These blogs provide you with a pre-structured website. You can choose between many templates to style the site to your liking, and you might be able to make some adjustments to the templates yourself. You fill in the content by making posts to the blog, which are then sorted by time, date, and category. These are terrific sites for people starting out because they require little or no HTML knowledge to make an attractive and useful website. However, you will have some small ads or link backs to the host on your site. You also have limited freedom in how to design the page, you need to stick with one of the pre-fabbed designs.

The second type of free web host is the traditional, ad supported web host. Three examples of this type of host are - http://www.geocities.com, http://www.tripod.com, and http://www.topcities.com. These webhosts allow you to create an html site to your liking, giving you a certain amount of storage space and a certain amount of bandwidth per month. You are provided with a simple WYSIWYG editor and the ability to upload HTML files that you edit on your hard drive. You have a lot of freedom (more than with the blog sites), but you do not have access to advanced scripting languages (like PHP or ASP) that would allow your site to become dynamic. Your site is also paid for in advertisements that the host places to its liking on your website. You have no or little control over what they look like and where they go. These ads will often be more obtrusive than the ones on blog websites, but that will depend on the particular host.

The third, and in my opinion best, free web host is one supported by forums. Three examples of these are - http://www.frihost.com, http://www.trap17.com, and http://www.astahost.com. These web hosts have discovered that they can have the web designers participate in forums that have ads integrated into them. As long as the designers stay active on the forums, those ads generate enough revenue to cover the costs of hosting. In return, the designers get free storage space, free bandwidth, and access to advanced scripting languages (PHP/MySQL usually). Web designers have the utmost freedom to do whatever they want and to utilize their knowledge to the fullest. There are also no forced ads on the websites, since the ads are used in the forums. In return for reading the forums regularly and posting an average of 2-4 posts per week, the web designer gets all of the web hosting he needs for free.

All three of these types of hosts are good, in the proper situation. If you just want to share your thoughts with the world, get a free blog. If you want more freedom to create pages to your liking, the traditional host is best. If you want to create a high-quality, dynamic, and ad-free website, you should use the forum-supported hosts.

Learn more about this author, B. Rock.
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