by Barbara Mccutcheon

Created on: November 21, 2008   Last Updated: August 04, 2010

Their Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. This goes for web hosting as well. The "free" personal web space that your Internet service provider (ISP) permits you is paid for by your monthly bill. Some companies claim to offer free web hosting, but only if you register your domain through their company. Webhosts that don't require any money from you, do require you to permit their advertisements on your site. This includes personal sites like MySpace and FaceBook.

There are free blog hosts that don't require you to carry their ads, but you are limited to text only entries. This is fine if all you want is to share your opinions or stories, but it won't work if you want to add pictures or sounds.

If what you want is a personal site for family and friends to visit, then your ISP is probably your best option. Be aware though that most ISP's will not permit private accounts to use their personal websites to conduct business, and the definition of "business" can vary quite a bit.

Businesses that want a catchy domain name will probably find what they want through companies that offer either free hosting with the purchase of a domain name, or a free domain name with the purchase of a web hosting package. These packages vary widely in price and in services provided.

Ad-supported free web hosts will give you a sub-domain name that includes their web hosting domain name. This usually takes the form, www.yoursite.webhostdomain.com. In addition to looking for a web hosting service that will provide the services you need, you must also check their advertisement policy and the host domain name. If they carry ads with objectionable content, or for objectionable products and services, you won't want to use them to host a child or family oriented site. Likewise, if the host domain name does not mesh with your business plan, your site may not be taken as seriously. Domain masking can take care of this latter problem, but if you're going to purchase a domain, you're probably better off signing up for a package.

Once you've decided what services you want, the types of advertisements you are willing to accept, and whether you want your own domain name or are willing to accept a sub-domain, you can begin to compare your options. There are so many companies offering widely diverse plans and packages, and they change so frequently, that is isn't possible to adequately review them in one article.

Fortunately, entering the words "free web hosting reviews" into a search engine will return

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