Posted @ September 9, 2007  |  1 Comment  |  Categorized Under: Web Hosting, Other

There are thousands of web hosting companies that are sprouting like mushrooms from ever corner of the worldwide web. The challenge is how to know the good ones from the bad ones.

Generally, it’s a person’s instinct to simply choose the cheapest web hosting fee one can find from a long list of web hosting providers. This may be a practical move in your part, but take not that there is a great risk involved if you venture into something without really digging deeply into what these web hosting companies really offer.

• Understanding “Unlimited” Bandwidth

Web hosting companies brag about unlimited bandwidth when in fact they know that most websites wouldn’t really reach millions of visitors in one day - so they are confident to claim such a thing. Bandwidth simply means the capacity of your site to handle traffic/ visitors. Unlimited bandwidth does not exist. The right tern is “unmetered” bandwidth. But that still sounds quite fishy. The truth is, they can never provide you unlimited bandwidth and if you were to use 900000000gb per month, their server will definitely not be able to handle it. Be aware that there may be a condition in your contract that states that any site that “exceeds”their bandwidth would be shutdown. Now, this is quite contradicting.

• Where is your server located?

Although it may sound good to hear that your hosting servers are located in the United States or United Kingdom, but it really wouldn’t make a difference if it were hosted in India or Nigeria. Point is, when it comes to how fast a web page can load, your hosting companies’ server location doesn’t matter much. The basic design and the size of your website is the primary factors of your site’s loading speed.

• Rock Bottom Prices

Always be a little discriminative with cheap web hosting. A simple reseller’s account, a ready-made website template and very cheap hosting fees can really lure someone into buying such service. Make sure that you check all the features you wanted for your website. Support is of prime importance as well. But don?t lose hope. There are still companies who offer cheap web hosting that can stand up for the quality of their service.

• Small Hosting Companies

Stick with small hosting companies. It is better to host with a small, reliable hosting provider than a large company that is not able to attend to every one of their customer needs. Some hosts are able to do a good job of this but there are only a few out there.

• Over Selling

Overselling means selling more than what is available or what can be provided. It is common for web hosting companies to sell their customers more than what should be sold. They assume that not everyone will consume all of the bandwidth or space allowed in their account. Most people think this is a bad thing. But in fact, overselling may be a good thing. Here is a great article you can read on why over selling may be good. This can be a bad thing if the web hosting company does not know what they are doing and are not able to keep it under control. So if you hear on a forum that a certain hosting company is currently over selling their plans, don’t be quick to judge and turn away.

Finding a good web host is a challenging feat. With a little background check, you would surely discover if a company is backed up with real testimonials. Reading some web hosting reviews would also help. It’s a good thing that most web hosting companies offer a 30-day money back guarantee so be sure to take advantage of that too.