eginners often look for ways to create their own free websites at the beginning of their journey, and although we fully understand the reasons that motivate them to do so, whether in order to reduce material costs or to gain experience before upgrading, we at WordPress in Arabic always advise switching to paid plans.
But what are the disadvantages of free hosting that prompt you to switch to paid hosting as soon as possible? How do you transfer your site data from free hosting to paid hosting? This is what we will discuss in our article today.
Free website concept
Sites in general, both free and paid, consist of two basic sections:
Domain name: This is the address of your site that people type in Internet browsers to reach your site (example wppr.net )
Hosting: This is the server on which all operations on your site are performed and all data is stored in it.
Of course, since you are looking to build your website without any financial costs; You must obtain a free domain name belonging to the service provider, as well as free hosting with limited resources.
Disadvantages of free sites
As we mentioned previously, free websites have many disadvantages. The word “free” is as tempting as it is, as it carries within it many disadvantages. Among them:
1. Unprofessional website
An unprofessional website has several characteristics that make it unpopular with visitors. One of these characteristics is the domain name, which often has to bear the name of the hosting company in order to get it for free, and this is what makes it inappropriate, long, and annoying.
Or your site is slow and takes a lot of time to load completely, which visitors will not wait for every time.
Even some free hosting does not allow the server on which your site depends to operate permanently, which leads to visitors being unable to access your site at times.
2. Limited support and limited options
You will definitely not get support from the hosting company when you subscribe without money. The free plan will often make you lose many important features, such as technical support, for example, which you will need when your site experiences a problem.
Also, the free plan will certainly be limited in terms of the storage space granted to your site on the server.
3. Not easy to develop
No matter how hard you work on your free website to develop it, unfortunately, it will not succeed. In addition to all the obstacles and disadvantages that exist in a free site, your site will not be easily archived in Google and other search engines. Of course, when there are no visits to the site, it means that it is an unsuccessful and useless site.
These were the most important disadvantages and disadvantages that you will get when you subscribe to free hosting, but if you want more explanation and reasons to understand more and be more convinced of the futility of the free website, you can see our article in which we explained 17 reasons that prevent you from creating a free website and the disadvantages that they hide. About you companies .
Move to paid hosting
Well, after you understand why you should give up free hosting and move to paid hosting, we will accompany you on this transition journey to explain to you the most important stations that you will pass through.
Choosing the hosting that best suits your requirements is the first and most important step you must take, as you will not always switch hosting frequently, of course. Choosing the best hosting for your needs will make your site ready to receive visitors in the best possible way.
With thousands of hosting companies, you are bound to be spoiled for choice, and perhaps choose wrongly. But do not worry, we have collected for you the most important criteria that will help you choose the hosting that suits you. We have also mentioned to you some of the most important and famous international hosting companies that you will often find what you require within one of their plans. You will find all of this and more in our article: The best hosting company you can rely on and 12 criteria for choosing the best hosting .
Transferring your site from free hosting to paid hosting
If you decide to move from a free plan that you relied on to host your site to a paid plan, it is easy. We have collected for you the most important ways to transfer your WordPress site from one hosting to another with the various types of free hosting that are often relied upon.
1. Use WordPress.com hosting
WordPress.com hosting is considered one of the most popular hosts that everyone who wants to create a WordPress website turns to first. But the mistake that most beginners make is that they think that wordpress.org and wordpress.com provide the same service, but in reality they are radically different and each has a different purpose from the other.
If you want to see the full differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, and know the features that you will get when you rely on WordPress.com hosting; We strongly advise you to go to our article about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. How and when to use each of them .
If you are relying on the free plan at WordPress.com, you can upgrade to a paid plan on the WordPress servers themselves, or move your site to any other hosting through which you can easily manage WordPress since the WordPress system is open source.
Read also: How to create a professional WordPress website that keeps pace with the latest technologies
2. Transferring your site from Blogger to WordPress
If you were someone who relied on Blogger to build his website in the beginning, and now you want to transfer your website to WordPress; Due to Blogger’s limitations compared to WordPress, this procedure is easy.
You can transfer your site from Blogger to WordPress through simple steps, so that you can transfer your site successfully, while converting all links to the site’s pages, and without affecting the site’s archiving in search engines or its SEO, which you certainly worked hard to achieve.
Of course, we have provided you with a complete article in which we explain the steps for transferring a Blogger blog to WordPress without affecting archiving, in a clear and illustrated way. You can view it and follow the steps to do so without trouble.
3. Transferring your site from another free hosting
Some free hosting gives you access to the site’s control panel and its files (root). If this is the case with the free hosting you rely on, you can follow the most precise manual steps for transferring your WordPress site from the free hosting to the new paid hosting.
If you do not have access to the free hosting control panel, do not worry, as there is still a way to transfer the site by using one of the specialized add-ons, which automates this process. All you need is the ability to install plugins on your free hosting site.
Finally, you can also transfer the site from one hosting to another through the support of the hosting itself. Some hosting service providers allow their technical support team to take all the necessary steps to transfer the site to their hosting from the previous hosting. All you have to do is contact them to arrange it.
Now, whether you want to move the site manually, using an add-on, or through technical support, all of these methods are explained in detail in our article explaining moving a WordPress site from one hosting to another in the correct manner so that you can review it and implement the method you want.
There is a final note that should be noted, which is that if the free hosting that your site is running on does not support access to the control panel or the ability to install add-ons on the site; Unfortunately, you will not be able to transfer your data to the new hosting.
In conclusion, we have discussed in this article the most important reasons that prompt you to move your site from free hosting to paid hosting, so that you can get more features, greater support, and have the opportunity to develop your site further.
We also explained the most important ways through which you can transfer your site smoothly and without any impact on its archiving or data.
