Search for free website hosting surges as economic downturn bites
Inflation sends online users to hunt for free and cheap web hosting
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Combined search for free website builders andfree web hostingis at its highest in almost two years as people come to terms with the cost-of-living crisis and wider economic downturn.
From May to June 2022 alone, the search volume for free web hosting doubled, with there also being a sharp increase in the number of people looking for thebest free website builderservices.
This is reflected in the number of site visits some of the topweb hostingand website builder services have received.
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The shift towards free web hosting
There is also some evidence to suggest this shift may have been playing out over a number of years.
According to data shared exclusively with TechRadar Pro bySimilarweb,GoDaddyhas lost roughly 20 million site visits in the last two years whilecheap web hostingproviderNamecheapgained around eight million.
It’s not just GoDaddy that has taken a hit; popular hosting providers such asBluehostandHostGatoralso experienced a significant drop in website visitors from May 2019 to May 2022.
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Along with Namecheap, affordable hosting providerHostingeralso saw an increase in site visits as monthly visits increased steadily from just over two million in 2019 to 8.2 million in 2022.
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Interestingly, the search for cheap web hosting took a significant drop in June 2022 as free web hosting became an increasingly popular search. Although, in the last twelve months, there has been a 30% increase in the number of searches for cheap web hosting, a 44% increase in the search for cheap website hosting and a 20% increase in the search volume forcheap website builders.
Last year, our research found thatweb hosting and website builder traffic slumped post-COVID. Coupling the damage from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has magnified the slowdown in the global economy, which is entering what could become a protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation, according to the Word Bank’s statistics, which is reflected in the shift in web hosting needs from online users.
Abigail is a B2B Editor that specializes inweb hostingandwebsite buildernews, features and reviews at TechRadar Pro. She has been a B2B journalist for more than five years covering a wide range of topics in the technology sector from colocation and cloud to data centers and telecommunications. As a B2B web hosting and website builder editor, Abigail also writes how-to guides and deals for the sector, keeping up to date with the latest trends in the hosting industry. Abigail is also extremely keen on commissioning contributed content from experts in the web hosting and website builder field.
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