Web hosting companies all over the internet are dropping their prices and increasing their services. This is what most of them do but a few went against the odds. These few chose to sell lifetime web hosting. Now what is lifetime web hosting? It is still web hosting but you only get to pay once - no monthly bills - that's why it's called lifetime. You pay just once and you get web hosting for life. So what are the pros and cons of lifetime web hosting?

The major PRO of lifetime web hosting is the cost. Though the initial one-time fee is fairly high - ranging from $49.95 to $500, it still is cheaper when you look at it on the long-run. After all, lifetime web hosting means long-term so we have to compute it that way.

Assuming, we pay $1.00 monthly for 50MB of regular web hosting, 12 months would be $12.00 and 5 years would be $60.00. 10 years would be $120.00 - you compute the rest. With this, you would easily see how much it becomes as each month passes by. 50MB lifetime web hosting with the same specs (or even better) would cost you only $49.95 - no matter how many years your site is hosted. Furthermore, the overhead cost of maintaining your website is greatly reduced so you get to focus your finances on other important matters such as website promotion, and product/service development. One more thing is that you don't have to remove your website from the internet if you can no longer afford the web hosting - it's there for life!

On the other hand, critics would say that lifetime web hosting is dangerous because it is "overselling." I did a quick computation based on present-day dedicated server rates and checked if lifetime web hosting is indeed feasible and I found out that a company selling lifetime web hosting would be able to maintain the site for as much as 40 years! And still earn a good income out of it. Now that's not lifetime is it? Well, true. However, 40 years for $49.95? I still think it's a good deal. What do you think?

As I see it, the only CON I see is the initial one-time fee which is fairly high as compared to the $1 monthly on regular web hosting. But then again, we have to think long-term.

OK, now you're interested and thinking of moving your website to a lifetime web host provider but wait. You surely don't want to make it wrong. So, what do you look for in a lifetime web hosting plan? Basically, you should look for:

1. Easy upgrading of your account
2. Upgrade should also be paid on a lifetime basis
3. Must support whatever features a regular web hosting has
4. Affordable one-time fee
5. Good technical support
6. 30-day money-back guarantee

And here are a couple of tips:

1. Do not go for the huge plan immediately, take a low plan at first. Anyway, you can upgrade anytime in the future if you need more space.

2. Try contacting the lifetime web hosting provider first and ask them whatever concerns you have before getting a lifetime web hosting plan from them.

That's all I can say. Lifetime web hosting - like regular web hosting has its good and bad sides so it's really upto you to weigh them and see for yourself.
About the author:

Mike Lopez is a PHP Programmer, Website Developer and a science enthusiast. He also owns a web hosting business - Sydel Web Hosting - http://www.sydel.net/