Choosing the right website hosting is crucial to the success of your online business and so is the choice of the hosting provider. A quick google search would list a number of web hosting services for you to choose. From cheap to costly the options are many and at first glance, the price can be an important factor used to convert visitors to customers. However, not everything that is cheap is wonderful, sometimes it might just prove to be not worth it in the long run.

In this article, we’ll talk about cheap or free cloud hosting and list down 5 reasons why it is best to avoid such web hosting services. So without further ado, let us begin!

What matters?

There are several features customers look out for when it comes to choosing web hosting for their website – performance and speed being the top two, with Cloud Hosting being the best bet. And in this quest of finding the best hosting service, we often times neglect another important feature – cost.

This is probably because we see a lot of hosting companies offering free or cheap web hosting with reasonable features and it seems like the best bet especially at the start. Be that as it may, a free or cheap web hosting can really mess up your website resulting in poor performance and unhappy customers.

Whether you are considering going for cheap Cloud Hosting due to limited funds or have already purchased it, we ask you to scroll down and consider the 5 reasons you should avoid free or cheap cloud web hosting for your website.

5 Reasons to Avoid Cheap Cloud Hosting

  1. Poor Page Load Speed
    Cloud Hosting, in general, is known for its fast page load speed and scalability. In fact, according to a report by Hubspot, the ideal page load speed for a website’s HTML should be less than 1.5 seconds. Given these statistics, it is evident that Cloud Hosting is the most logical choice for blazing fast website speed.
    However, with cheap Cloud Hosting, there are two factors to be considered:
    1. Is the Cloud Hosting cheap always or
    2. Is there some promo going on
      If the prices of Cloud Hosting are always on the cheaper end, chances are the server is hosted in a Shared Hosting platform. Here multiple websites share the same server which, in turn, might impact the page load speed of your website. However, if the case is the latter then do your research thoroughly because the Cloud Hosting might be good and the provider might just be running the promo to up their sales in the competitive market.
  2. Negative impact on SEO and rankings
    Speed impacts SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Google considers page load speed while determining the page rank it assigns to a particular page. In fact, this is of utmost importance when it comes to mobile searches. If your website speed is slow then your page will load slower from the server end which would eventually affect your google page rank. Thus, cheap Cloud Hosting has a negative impact on SEO and page rankings.
  3. Uptime/Downtime issues
    Cheap hosting spells server issues. If the server your website is hosted on is down there will be a lot of downtime. This is mostly true because multiple websites share the same server space and there is limited bandwidth. Thus, if a particular website receives heavy traffic it might not only affect the performance of that website but also of the other websites hosted on the server. Moreover, if your server faces a lot of downtime, it will indirectly affect the uptime and your website may not recover as fast as it should have.
  4. Security Concerns
    Everything comes with a price! Cheap or free Cloud Hosting doesn’t guarantee security. This means your website is vulnerable to security flaws, malicious viruses and so on. Furthermore, with multiple websites sharing the same server and a lack of firewall can increase your security concerns. You may have your own security in place, however, if the server is compromised all is lost.
  5. Customer Support
    Most cheap or free hosting services do not offer managed support to their clients. This means that if you are not tech savvy you might land yourself in a glitch. Before choosing a free hosting provider, make sure to check if they have good customer support via calls/emails/tickets/chats. If you feel anything is lacking then it is wise to not go ahead with the deal. After all, good support is helpful in times of need.

Conclusion:

Cheap Hosting may seem like a lucrative option at the start, however, in the long run, it is far more expensive than a slightly high priced hosting might be. So the next time you are tempted to opt for cheap Cloud Hosting we suggest you go a step further and research if it is really value for money or just making a hole in your pocket.