Web hosting services are all over the place. You can find one on every virtual street corner on the web. Some charge fees, but a large number do not. These web hosts who offer free web space automatically add advertising to your site when your files are uploaded.
They have to add the advertising by putting some HTML on your pages, which can really cause errors on your coded pages. The HTML is loaded onto your code without a concern for your formatting or anything else. Validating your HTML coded pages after the ads have been placed upon your pages can be a nightmare.
In case you don't know what "validating your web page" means, it is a process of checking documents (web pages) for grammar and HTML spelling errors. Effectively, it means that a "tool called a validator is checking your web page against the grammar you claim to be using." In this case that would be HTML. You can use the W3 validator to check your website is using valid code.
If you want to learn about running your own web site, then a free hosting service is the way to go. You will have to share your site with the advertising that pays for your free space. Nothing is ever really free. Here's three free hosting sites for you to check out.
One host offers free hosting if you purchase your domain from them. Others manage to use coding for their ads that is not so blatant and obtrusive as some. They both have their own control panel with a site manager. FTP access is not available on either service unless you upgrade to the premium account. Do a Google search for "free hosting" and you will find more options to choose from than you'll ever need with millions of results to ponder over.
If you decide to use free hosting for your website, please read any forms, agreements, contracts and terms of service very carefully. Once you pay for it, you are stuck with whatever you agreed to do and what the free service said they were not going to do. You might have to dig that last one out of their mumbo jumbo, but it will be there someplace.
Be very sure that the free hosting service has some sort of customer service available, either by phone, email or help desk. If they do not, find one that does. If you don't, when your site goes down, "Who are you going to call?"
Dan Thompson is a veteran website designer and has used numerous web hosts in his time. Dan specializes in writing web host reviews, his latest article is a Hostmonster Review. You can view Dan's latest web hosting review at http://www.hostmonster-the-review.com
