What to look at before
you buy web hosting
Choosing a web host is a
tricky business, there are so many companies out there all offering
you incredible packages, but do you really know what it is they are
offering you?
Hosting is a cutthroat
business; web hosts are desperate for new customers and will do
just about anything to get you onboard. These will include things
like offering you a free domain name, bandwidth and disk space
upgrades or special deals on shopping carts.
Don’t get sucked in by
these deals, make sure that you do your research before you commit
to a company. In this article I will show you exactly what to look
for before you sign up with a web host.
1. The Price
Most shared hosting
packages from the “big” companies will come priced at around $3 -
$12 per month. Whilst this may seem very cheap make sure that you
read the small print, you will often find that to get the cheapest
price you need to sign up to a long contract, usually 2 years. If
you want to sign up for a short-term contract then the host may
charge you a “set-up fee” or a higher monthly rate. You will notice
that I made a point of highlighting the contract lengths and set-up
fee's in my recent Hostmonster review. Make sure you know exactly
how much everything is going to cost before you sign up with
anyone.
2. The Disk Space and
Bandwidth
Don’t be fooled by hosts
that claim to give you “unlimited” disk space and “unlimited”
bandwidth – there is no such thing! It’s impossible to find a hard
drive that doesn’t fill up, the same goes for bandwidth, any host
that sells you an unlimited service should be treated with great
caution. They are probably overselling their servers in the hope
that you don’t use up a lot of disk space or bandwidth.
The same goes for the
“monster” hosting packages; by this I mean the packages that offer
you a ridiculous amount of disk space and bandwidth for a low
monthly fee. You will usually find that as soon as you get anywhere
near the disk space or bandwidth limits you will be forced to
upgrade to a dedicated server or VPS package. A shared hosting
package simply can’t run with one customer using up so many
resources.
3. The
Support
This is the most
important part of the process, you can have the best hosting deal
in the world but if the support is terrible then it is worthless.
No matter how tech-savvy you are, chances are that you will, at
some point need to contact the technical support team.
Before you sign up with
any web host, send them a technical support question and phone
their helpdesk. Ask them a general hosting question and then wait
for the reply. If you receive a reply within a timely fashion then
it’s obviously a good sign, if however you are left waiting for
days then you should probably avoid the host!
Dan Thompson is a
veteran website designer and has used numerous webhosts in his
time. Dan specialises in writing web host reviews, his latest
article is a Hostmonster Review. You can view Dan's latest web
hosting review at http://www.hostmonster-the-review.com
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Thompson
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