Free website hosting on wiki farms - what's the catch?

Wiki farms are sites which offer wiki hosting services. Some offer free hosting and others offer fee-based hosting. Yes, I said free hosting. You may ask, what's the catch? Like me, you've likely observed that there aren't many things in life that are free. As the sign in the posted photo shows, to get free stuff you usually must buy other stuff. And, often you sometimes don't need or even want the other stuff that you had to buy, to get the free stuff!

However, I've got great news for you. I've used three free wiki hosting services and am delighted to report that all indeed have been totally free. I've not been hit 90 days later with an offer to extend my website hosting for a small monthly fee, with my content held hostage until I posted a payment by credit card or PayPal. I've also not been bombarded with pop-up ads or other annoying offers flooding my in-box. You can believe it, there is really such a thing after all as hosting services offering free wikis.

If there's no actual cost, you may be wondering about how the wiki hosting services can afford to be so generous. Well, the free wiki hosting services will depend on the proceeds from the ads that they place on your wiki pages. Many wiki services offer a fee-based service where no ads are posted on the wiki pages. Some fee-based wiki services allow the wiki creator to arrange for ads to be placed on the wiki with revenue going to the wiki organizer instead of the wiki hosting service. If you're planning to create a wiki site for an education institution, but can't host a website which displays advertisements, don't worry. Many wiki hosting services offer ad-free wikis to educators after completing a brief application process.

If you're interested in creating a website, but you aren't a geek and you don't want to sink any cash during the process, a wiki may be your solution. It's a win-win too if you want to work with a group or a community in creating your website.

Stay tuned to this blog for more information on features of wiki hosting services and how to select a wiki hosting service. If you just can't wait, visit Everything Wiki, a wiki site with everything you'd probably want to know about using wikis.

Image credit: http://carolune.ca.funpic.org/blog/?p=28