You Can Have Web Presence for Free

Setting up a website can be expensive.

1. Hosting Service (cheapest option): $4.99/mo = $59.88/yr
2. Website Designer/Developer: $1000+ for the design plus maintenance fee
3. Domain Name: $12.99/yr

*Based on GoDaddy pricing. 

Pricy, right? And all you wanted was to make a website to post your cat pictures. Unless you are already running a multi-million dollar company, taking the free option to start isn't a bad idea. If your website does grow in the future (to a million dollar company), it's not hard to upgrade.

How to get Free Webhosting

To have a website on the internet, you need somewhere to put your website and its content in - you need a host. Most hosting services charge a monthly fee to host your website.

There are free hosting alternatives and I've tried a lot of them. Some put annoying ads on your website, some require you to have certain amount of visitors every month and some have small bandwidth and storage (to the point that it's useless). Of all the hosting services I've tried, I found this service named Xtreemhost to be the best.

Xtreemhost Free Plan

Xtreemhost offers a free webhosting plan with no ads. They also offer adequate amount of webspace and bandwidth with their free package.

I've been using Xtreemhost for around 5 years. I host my personal website there. Their uptime is pretty good. I don't have many problems with their servers and they have good support even with their free service.

You can look at what their free plan offers with the chart on the left. A long time ago, Xtreemhost did offer free unlimited bandwidth, free unlimited web storage - almost free unlimited everything - I miss those days. They have a premium service for $42/yr that does offer this unlimited everything service. But their free package is still the best I've seen so far. 

Not only does Xtreemhost have the best free package, they also have free script installers and free a site builder. What does that mean? It means that you can have a website up and running in 30 minutes. With a couple of clicks, you can start blogging with Wordpress, create your e-commerce store with Open Cart, or run a forum with My BB. They also have a site builder where you can choose from serveral free templates and all you do is plug in information to build your website.

For all the web developers out there, of course, you don't have to use the scripts and templates. You can upload your hand-coded masterpiece via FTP. Host and Build Your Website with XtreemHost ►

How to get a Free Domain Name

I didn't get an actual ".com" for my personal website cyreneq.com until 2 years ago. I finally gave in and bought a real domain when "co.cc" shut down. I'm happy with the decision even though it cost me $13/yr at GoDaddy. My justification is that having a ".com" is easier to remember and looks more professional.

If you don't want to cough up the $13, here's some free domain (really sub domains) alternatives.

• Uni.Me: Instead of having a ".com," you can have a "uni.me" (ex. cashhunterprincess.uni.me) They also offer cz.cc, mac2.org, trade-e.com. You can set up nameservers and redirects with this free domain service.
• Co.nr: It's the shortest free domain I've seen, but they require that you put a small link of their service somewhere on your website and they have a 2 months inactivity rule. I don't think you can set up nameservers, but they do have path forwarding. 

Keep it Simple

If all that confused you too much with hosting, domain names, nameservers, etc. and you just want a simple website, here's the easiest ways.

• Wix: Once you sign up, your hosting is automatically set up, your subdomain (ex. cyreneq.wix.com) is automatically set up. All you have to do is find a template to start, or you can design from scratch (no coding required - it's all drag and drop). Free version is ad-supported.
• Blogger: It's what I used for this website blog. You sign up and you can start blogging right away.
• Wordpress Blog: Similar to blogger - sign up and start blogging.

Happy website building!