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Learn how to tell the difference between a good and bad webhosting company.
This guide is for every beginner webmaster such as myself. Your adventure through the internet is going to be filled with dangerous traps and every corner. Please read this guide so that you don't make the same mistakes I made.
As a new webhoster, I'm sure you've already heard about the major companies. The most popular webhosting companies nowadays are GoDaddy.com, 1and1.com, Hostgator, Dreamhost, and more. Then we also have the ISP-based webhosting companies like Earthlink, AOL, and Yahoo.
Is there's really a difference between all these webhosting companies?
Are all these webhosting companies the same?
Will you ever use up all the space and bandwidth that they offer?
What type of webhosting services do you need?
What service plan should you pay for?
Should you go with a big webhosting company or local shop?
The first step to finding a good webhoster is to weed out all the bad ones. Webhosting space and bandwidth is getting cheaper as technology improves and space and internet speed becomes more affordable. There are so many webhosting advertisements out there guaranteeing virtually unlimited everything. The truth is, it really isn't that simple. Below are some suspicious advertising lines and why you should watch out for them.
2,000gb server space! -
You guessed it! Total BS. How are companies able to offer you a full 2 terabytes of space at only $10 a month?! The truth is... they can't. They count on the fact that you will choose their webhosting plan and that you will only use a very small fraction of that space. They bet on the statistics that all the people who won't use up the server space will be able to support the few people that do. It's a very nasty tactic of over-selling server space and then not actually having the reserves to back it up. Imagine if the U.S. Federal Bank didn't have enough gold to cover all the dollar bills being passed around. The market would collapse the moment there was a sharp increase in cash-outs. Same with web-hosting, over-selling is part of the reason why servers fail or don't work correctly the moment you attempt to use all the space you were promised. ----- Suppose you COULD actually use up the space... after all, they did give you the space so what now? From here, you have to fight the CPU limitations because many webhosting companies allow you only a very tiny bit of CPU usage before they are allowed to disabled your account as hidden in the "terms of agreement" or "terms of service". It's very hard to use up all 2,000gb of space if your CPU usage limitations are so small....unless of course, you used the space in a very handicap manner and only stored files but didn't use them at all.
Unlimited MySQL Databases! -
Again, total lies. Another over-selling tactic. Many webhosting companies, EVEN THE BIG ONES, have small fine print in that big long agreement form that basically say that they can temporarily disable service to your account if you use a certain amount of CPU space. This little disclosure right here protects them from having to backup this claim. Can you imagine Microsoft hosting their webpage with this company for unlimited MySQL database usage? Ha! It would take at least a small apartment's worth of servers to support the amount of traffic msn.com gets in a day. Another reason why you don't want a webhoster that offers unlimited MySQL databases is because that means all their webservers are going to be overloaded. The moment your website or another website being hosted on the server gets a sharp jump in traffic, the server is going to overload and not load up your websites. Even if the servers were running, your website would still be running slower but you wouldn't know if that was normal or not.
24/7 Support -
Is it even phone support? You'd be surprised at how many companies state 24/7 support but only offered through email. What good is that? How much money or visitors would you lose if your site was down for 3 hours during mid-day and had nobody to help you out? Want to find out if their support actually exists? Just call the support number on the website and see if they even pick up.
99.99% Uptime -
Don't fall for this one. It's common for even the big name webhosters to be down at least 1-3 hours out of every month. You might not always notice it but it does happen. Check the reviews before you believe it. Do your research.
What other details should you be looking for but didn't know they existed? There are so many other features out there that people don't know they need. Web-hosting companies don't bother listing them because of course, they don't want to seem like they're at a disadvantage when compared to other webhosts.
A dedicated IP -
This is very important for several purposes. One of the major reasons is to support SSL connections. For example if you were a e-commerce company and wanted to offer better security for your online customers. A less obvious reason is to give yourself a unique IP. If you are a company that sends outs many emails to many other users..it is VERY important to have a dedicated IP. The opposite of dedicated IP is shared IP, which means that many websites are being shared on one server. And therefore, they all have the same IP as the server. The danger in this is if another website being hosted on the same server sends out a ton of spam. What happens next is that other email servers around the world begin blacklisting that particular email domain by identifying it by its IP. This is terrible because if your domain is hosted on the same server as the spammer, your emails will become blacklisted as spam as well and you will find that many of your sent emails will become undeliverable. Do not waste your time believing it when webhosters say they are in the process of getting their servers off the spam lists. Save the hassle by getting a dedicated IP. This is where many webhosting companies begin to fall out from the rest in terms of additional pricing for a dedicated IP.
Add-on Programs/Scripts -
Many webhosters surprisingly do not support certain popular Content Management Systems (CMS), web forum scripts, blog scripts, calendar scripts and so forth. If you plan on having a website for a long time to come...make sure you realize that it is only a matter of time before you eventually use a CMS system. They are simply that good, I won't bother explaining why. Keep in mind that many webhosters only offer the major 10, while other webhosters offer automatic installs for just about every kind of CMS or script that you can think. This stuff makes it easier for the less technically-skilled web publishers and designers so keep this in mind.
CPU loads -
It's very important to get a good idea of how much percentage the server CPU runs at. It's very common for bargain-price webhosting plans or super-cheap plans to be running at high CPU loads all the time. This is terrible because it means your website will load slow and could even go slower should massive traffic hits any of the websites hosted on the same server.
There's a whole lot more to it than this. But this guide should help you steer clear of many bargain web-hosters. And oh yea...if you're looking for a recommendation....I recommend www.ANhosting.com They have great services at a very reasonable price and VERY VERY good support! I pay about $10/month and they answer 15 expert-level emails in one night all within an hour of submitting them. I've had great success with them and so should you. For the record, I've tried about 5 different webhosting companies - dreamhost, lunarpages, godaddy, 1&1, and anhosting. ANhosting is the best.
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