The tentacles of the hosting industry are spreading its range with each passing day, bringing in more competition all the time. And this being the scenario around the free web hosting services may seem very much luring - free services, managing your site for free with their own domain names!! But do you know what you miss when you don’t have your own domain name?

 

Let’s use a supposition to start with. Suppose you are the proprietor of a business, may be a small one, but you will definitely look out for the internet as one of the means of reaching out to your customer circle. When you adopt a free web host, your site will have a domain name like http://www.freewebhost.com/youronlinecart. But if you put yourself onto your customer’s shoes, don’t you think you would feel it more safer to shop with something like http://www.youronlinecart.com? The URL itself spells permanence and a brand. And when you leave the things to your free web host, without your own domain name, just imagine what an impression it would make with so many ads on your site - that you are reluctant to spend money on your own business and the worst part is these ads may include your competitor too!!

 

One more important thing is the search engine perspective. When you don’t have a domain name of your own your URL would be something like http://www.freewebhost.com/yourwebsite, but with your own domain name it would be something like http://www.yourwebsite.com. And the profit of the second URL is that you can use the right keyword in the second URL helping your site to rank higher. To make it more clear, the search engine look at the whole domain and your site is simply a sub domain for them in the first URL and your index.html page is not the home page of that particular domain, even though it is your home page. So your SEO strategies are at a twist at the beginning itself. Why make your job harder when you at least have a fighting chance with your own domain name?

Have you ever thought that how could your own domain name help you in managing emails? With a domain name of your own, you can set up an email account anytime, for example name@yourowndomain.com. And what I mean by managing your emails with your own domain name is that -

 

Another important factor that I would like to bring to light is that you have your URL printed on your cards, brochures, folders, etc and when you plan to change your host, imagine the turmoil and expense of reprinting everything once again! But when you have your own domain name, your URL is constant, forever. If you are blogger also, it is always favorable to host your own blog with your own domain name, so that you don’t get confined by the restrictions of the blogging sites.

 

If you are a student, or creating a website only for your craze of a hobby, than definitely the free web hosts are a better option as there is no point of spending so much on your domain name. But if you are an artist, a designer or a craftsman, than may be you won’t want yourself to be seen with a free web host! And if its for your own business, however small, you definitely don't want to be seen on a free hosting site with the irritating pop-up ads. One more point worth noticing is the way in which the domain name registration fees are declining these days. They are becoming affordable and cheaper day-by-day. Last, but not the least, as to why you have your own domain name is authority and liberty.