This can be controversial but I’m not known for not giving my opinions!

Some will tell you to get a free webhost. First, nothing in this life is free. If you use a free host for galleries, they will generally add a banner at the top — and sometimes bottom — of the pages you submit. So, you are in effect giving away your traffic as surfers do tend to click on the first thing they see at the top of the page.

If you use a free host for blogs, there is generally a link at the top of the page to a dating or cam site. Again, you are giving away your traffic.

Webhosts are not expensive these days. You don’t need a dedicated server when you first begin. You can get something simple like a shared virtual account at A1 Web Solutions for under $7 a month (I am not being paid to mention these hosts). C’mon, seven bucks a month — you probably spend that in a day or two at McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts.

My theory is it takes money to make money. Invest a little and you can make a lot. Go the free route and you can make very little.

What you need to remember when seeking a webhost is to do your research. Read the various adult forums and the webhosting forums and see what is said. I’m sure there are hosts that charge less than seven bucks a month, but you get what you pay for.

Your web host is the one who keeps your website online. Don’t you want your site up 24/7? Don’t you want a host who monitors your server, upgrades the software that runs the host, etc? Don’t you want a host who knows about server load?

Let’s say a host has 100 webmaster accounts on one box. And, one of those has a huge site. Using all that bandwidth and resources will slow down YOUR sites. A proper host will see that and move the big user to another box so as to not affect his other customers.

Back in 1996 I was co-locating and the fee was $1,000 a month plus $12.50 a gig of bandwidth. I heard of a “free” host so asked about it. My current host gave me advice that was just SO correct — something to the effect of, “Pam, yes, you get free bandwidth, but here is how it works. It’s like showing you a one-million gallon tank of gas and telling you that you can have all you want. The only issue is you have to remove it with a cocktail straw.”

In other words, the ‘free’ host will have people abusing the system, using massive amounts of bandwidth, leaving your site to load slowly if it loads at all, Apache (software that runs servers) locking up due to overload, etc.

If you want to use a free webhost for your first blogs, should you decide to work in the splog realm, that’s fine, but just remember you are giving away that precious traffic and sales. For $7 or less a month you can find a decent host and not give away anything.

Be sure to check your host’s 404* pages. I signed up with a host one time and even with a dedicated server, they would hijack all my 404 pages with their own pages, which was a 14-page popup chain. They are, in effect, stealing your traffic that way.

Once you have a lot of websites and/or a lot of traffic, you may want to consider going to a managed dedicated server. I use Phatservers and have been with them for a few years and am very, very happy. Managed is important, unless you are intimately familiar with upgrading and updating software like *nix, Apache, PHP, SendMail, DNS, etc. I went with an unmanaged server once and had to hire a friend to help me with issues. He installed the firewall for me which is pretty much standard with a managed server. He upgraded my software and monitored the server for me. In the end it cost just as much.

If you plan to skimp to save money in this business, then you probably should not be in the business, but of all the things where you can save a buck or two, hosting should be the last thing you consider skimping on.

*404 is the http response number when a webpage can not be found.