How to Choose a Web Host

The hardest part of creating a website, particularly one designed to earn you money, is, I think, choosing the correct web host. Choosing the wrong web host could result in your site being ‘down’ more often than it is ‘up’, your site being so slow to load that the visitors leave before seeing it or even your site and/or domain being held hostage by an unscrupulous hosting company.

2 quick tips

The first important thing to remember is that you should always register your domain with a registrar that is completely separate from your hosting company. If you register your domain with the same company then you are opening yourself up to losing everything if the company crashes and burns.

Secondly, make sure you keep your own back ups. Your host might advertise that they take back ups every minute and store them on 20 different servers but if the company fails or a server is hacked you could lose the back ups that they kept. Even worse, there are tales of people being charged money in order to retrieve their backup when they attempt to cancel a hosting account.

First Impressions

As with anything, first impressions can often be absolutely correct. If a host’s website appears to have been made by someone with no technical skills then you have to wonder whether the people or person behind the company has the skills to run a server (or servers). This is especially true in an age where free “templates” can look good and take only minimal effort and expertise to install. If a company cannot be bothered with a decent website, can they be bothered with basic maintenance or customer support?

Reputation

Once you have a short list of hosts, start Googling. This seems simple enough but it can be a little tricky in an industry that has more than its fair share of scam artists or ‘fly-by-night’ companies.

There are certain things to remember when you are reviewing Google results for the company you are researching. For instance, some “web host review” websites are merely shills for one or more companies. There are such sites that are created and hosted by one or more hosting companies so you can imagine that there would not be many negative reviews on those sorts of sites. On the other hand, some companies will go to those types of sites and write negative reviews for companies that they view to be their competitors.

Check hosting forums where you can ask specific questions and get specific answers and perform searches of those forums to see what other people are saying recently.

Customer Support

Once you have determined the company’s reputation, you need to look into the support that they provide. Customer support is probably the most important thing offered by a company that provides you with an account. If your website is inaccessible, running extremely slowly or there are errors appearing where there should be none, the last thing you want is to contact the host and then not receive a response.

One way to test this is to send a quick email to their sales department with some basic questions (such as where the servers are located, whether there are any hidden charges or ask for clarification regarding the software they run) and then see how quickly they respond and whether their response is of any quality. Of course, you need to factor in that sales emails should be a lower priority than support emails so they may be a little slower to respond and you should also remember that most sales departments are not available over night or over a weekend or holiday.

If you get a response that does not answer your questions, contains a lot of broken english or you get no response at all then you should consider whether they are the host for you.

The Prices

As with anything else, the old adage rings true: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, servers are not free no matter how big the hosting company and they have bills to pay like anyone else. If they are charging $1 for everything under the sun then it is likely that there is a downside.

A big concern with these sorts of companies is that they “oversell” or “overload” their servers. This means that they might be running a server capable of hosting 100 shared accounts or 20 VPS’ but they are running double, triple or quadruple that number just to turn a profit. If you sign up for an account on a server like that then your pages will load extremely slowly and you might suffer more downtime than uptime.

However, if a company is providing their services at a price that appears to be relatively similar to other competitors then there is a better chance of overloading. Of course, the only way to know for sure is by researching the company or putting your own website on their servers but price can be a good indicator.

Nothing is Unlimited

“Unlimited” hosting is considered a scam by those in the know for a very good reason: there is no such thing as unlimited. There are no “unlimited” hard drives or internet backbones which means that a host offering “unlimited storage” needs to place a limit somewhere. Think of it this way: is an unlimited host going to be happy for you to upload terabyte upon terabyte to their servers? Would they continually add hard drives to the server you are on just to allow you to keep uploading? Or would they take your money and terminate your account?

If a host offers “unlimited” storage or bandwidth, I move on immediately. However, if you decide to continue with them, make sure to read their terms of service or acceptable use policy. You will often find “fair use” doctrines in these documents that make it very difficult for you to even use their service. For instance, terms that prevent you from using “a certain percentage of the server’s resources” are usually code for “if you use too much space and bandwidth, we’ll terminate your account”. Nothing is free and nothing is unlimited.

Start Small

If you are looking for a number of servers or accounts, start with a cheap shared hosting account. This will enable you to get a good idea as to how they run their servers and how well they provide support. Some companies will provide you with a lower level of support because they do not feel that you are spending enough money but those who provide a genuine service will treat you as someone who they cannot survive without.

Be Gentle

Remember, a hosting company is still a company. Mistakes can happen and they can cause you to have a negative experience or an issue that you would prefer you did not. However, treat them like any other company and react in the same way. For instance, if your local store employee was not quite as cheerful as you would expect, you would not refuse to shop there ever again. You would probably give them another chance and not boycott them unless there were more negative experiences.

It’s the same with a hosting company. If someone makes a mistake or you suffer through an issue that you believe was the host’s fault, bring it to their attention and see how they handle it. If they brush it off as though it’s not important or if they suggest that it was your fault (and you are sure it was not your fault), then you should consider moving on.

Spread the Word

When you do find a host that you are happy with, go back to the forums that you used to do your research and spread the word. Explain why you are happy with the service (provide examples) and make sure you are honest throughout. If the company made a mistake, explain why you are still happy with them (i.e. they fixed the mistake quickly and honestly) and allow other people to make their own decisions.

After all, when someone has a bad experience, they will tell the world. All too often, however, when someone has a good experience, they fail to tell anyone.

Josh runs http://www.talkingvps.com (a VPS hosting discussion forum) and has years of experience in choosing a web host.

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