A website is very important to any modern business, and a hosting service is very important to any modern website! Your site, and therefore a large part of your brand identity and the business itself, will depend heavily on the hosting tariff you choose. Even a little downtime can mean the difference between success and failure in those all-important early stages. If you’re about to start looking for a hosting service for your business website, here are three important things you should know…
The “Free Domain” Trap
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Yes, on the surface, a “free domain” sounds pretty appealing. This is especially true if your capital is stretched a little thin, and you’re struggling to get your business idea off the ground. However, it’s extremely important to dig a bit deeper when you’re looking at these deals, and find out what agreeing to one would really mean for your business. One of the most important things to bear in mind is that the hosting company retains ownership of the domain. This means that once you’ve bought into the agreement, you’ll either be stuck with that company forever, or you’ll have to pay a pretty big sum to buy the domain back. It’s also important to note that nothing is ever given away for “free” in the world of web hosting. You’ll likely have to cover some substantial renewal costs for the next year, or agree to display third-party ads. No matter what kind of website you’re working on, it’s always going to be better to choose a cheap VPS Server, dedicated server, or shared deal than anything that’s meant to be “free”.
The Dark Side of Unlimited Storage
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Just like a free domain, unlimited storage sounds pretty great at first glance. This is why so many hosting services promote it in big, eye-catching letters on their landing pages! Again, just like a free domain name, there’s really no such thing as “unlimited storage”. Before you choose a hosting provider for their promises of great storage capabilities, it’s important to spend some time reading all of their terms of service. In this day and age, your natural inclination may be skimming anything that jumps out to you, then scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking “I agree”. Somewhere in the terms of service, there’ll be a section dealing with the CPU or server storage you’re entitled to. In spite of their tempting offers, these clauses will usually state that if your site uses up a certain amount of storage, then it will have violated the terms of service, and could be terminated. This may sound a little sneaky, but hosting companies need this section of their terms of service in order to protect their resources from improper use. Nevertheless, it’s important to understand that most “unlimited storage” services have a limit to them.
There’s Always Shortcomings
Web hosting is far from a simple business. At any time, there are all kinds of technical issues, cyber-attacks and freak occurrences which can cause major problems for web hosting companies, which will invariably affect their clients. There’s no way of totally avoiding these mishaps, so the best thing for you to do is to find a service which is known for the kinds of issues that will affect your business the least. Type “[insert hosting company name] sucks” into Google, and you’ll be amazed by the poor experiences some people have had with some really reputable names! Just make sure to take these reports relative to the service they’re describing. Larger companies tend to disappoint more of their customers, simply because there are more of them. It may appear that a particular hosting service has received nothing but bad reviews, but be aware that these will often only make up a small proportion of their whole customer base. A general lack of objectivity is another big thing to bear in mind. The statements and reviews found on personal blogs and open forums are often highly biased, and influenced by factors outside of the service itself. Any kind of rebuttals, of course, can be deleted by the administrator in order to create a more one-sided page overall. Finally, you need to remember that complaints about a service in general are exceedingly common! I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s much easier to rant about how bad something is than it is to shower it with praise!
Before you settle on any single hosting solution, make sure you’re taking these points into account. Make your choice carefully, and your hosting service will bring nothing but good things!