Infertility Home > Professionals > Business Mgt. > Web Site > Development

Using a Free Web Site Development and Hosting Service

Some service providers (e.g., Salu.net and Medem) allow physicians to build a Web site for free, using Web-based templates. The service provider also hosts the Web site for free. There are a some advantages to using the free services, including:

• There is no cost for the development and hosting
• The sites are easy to build and update
• The sites are typically attractive and professional-looking

However, free services have the following disadvantages:

1. You will not receive your own Domain Name for your Web address. You will have to use the service's Domain Name.  Do you want to put that Web address on your brochures, newsletters, and stationary? Does it provide a professional-looking address?
    
2. You may find your home page Web address contains lots of junky characters. For example, here is the home page address for a group of glaucoma physicians:
   
   http://www.glaucomaassociates.eyemd.org/ypol/ user/userMain.asp?siteid=5746
   
   The above type of Web address is typical for one of the free services. Search engines typically cannot index this kind of address.
    
3. Review the Web addresses of the site subpages. Here is the Web address for a physician on the site (spaces added below so the URL will fit on this web page):
   
   http://www.glaucomaassociates.eyemd.org/ypol/ user/userMain.asp?siteid=8151& content=userHomePage&bcx=My%20Doctor^TAB~ Web%20Site^MNU~Dr%20Dickens^PST^8151~Home%20Page^ CAT^1&rndm=0.6831244
   
   It is doubtful that an infertility Web site or directory would point to the above Web page address. Also, most search engines will not be able to index a page with the above type of Web address.
    
4. You will probably not be able to extensively update your keyword tags (i.e. META keywords, META description, Title tag, and ALT tags) to rank higher in the search engines.
    
5. You will not be able to create a unique Web site.  You must use the template structure of the service provider.
    
6. Your Web site will always be at the mercy of the free Web service. It will not be a portable Web site. 
   • If you are not happy with the services, you cannot simply move your Web site to another provider. 
   • If the free Web service goes out of business, your Web site will disappear. 
      
7. Check if the service offers any way of effectively promoting your infertility Web site. Typically they do not.
    
8. Check if the service offers online Web statistics reports.  If reports are offered, see if the report contains a "referrer" section which allows you to see which Web sites are sending traffic to your Web site. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your Web site promotion.

In summary, the most important limitation with a free service is that your Internet promotion will be hampered.

IHR offers full hosting and promotion services to effectively promote your infertility Web site.