Signs of a Bad Web Hosting Company and How to Avoid Them

by Roy E. Jones

Online, your website is everything. Your online reputation, brand and business are all dependent on your site. You could have a fancy design that costs thousands of dollars, beautifully crafted sales pages written by the top copywriter in the world and a number of full time employees marketing your business day in and day out.

Guess what? None of it matters if your web host can't keep your site online! The truth is that you could stand to lose thousands of dollars in lost revenue if your web hosting company isn't reliable. Worse still, the company you chose to rely on was a small, two man operation and they don't even back up the data on their servers.

What would you do if your fancy design, your content and your customer database just disappeared after a server crash?

It is vital that you choose a host that are reliable, trustworthy and reputable.

Here's what you should avoid:

Dirt Cheap Hosting Prices. I'm not talking about hosts that offer you a first month discount of $0.01 here. What I'm talking about is a host that offers a ridiculously low monthly price. If it is substantially lower than any other web hosting company out there, then you have to question why. You may be getting limited resources, meaning a slow server and poor experience for your visitors. You may never be able to contact the hosts customer service. Worse still, if the service is so cheap it will attract all the spammers and scammers. Do you want your IP address associatied with spammers?

Unheard of company in the industry. I've used a number of smaller hosting companies that weren't well know and had no reputation in the industry. Every time, they've under delivered on what I expected and even though the service was cheap, it wasn't giving me what I wanted out of a hosting company. When it comes to web hosting, you need a company who has been around, earned their stripes and is now a reputable leader in the industry. Whatever you do, don't cut corners on your web hosting and go with an unheard of company.

Unrealistic claims. If the hosting company is bolding stating they have 100% uptime or that a $3 package is for unlimited domains and unlimited bandwidth then you have to question their authenticity. For a start, all hosting companies have to perform tests, updates and maintenance on their servers once in a while and this will result in some downtime. If a package looks too good to be true then read the small print. If there is no small print, don't risk it. Chances are you'll have a severely limited server which is rammed full of other site owners that tried to save money on hosting just like you!

Hard to use control panel. Most web hosting companies use popular admin control panel software like cPanel. It's easy, straight forward and even a beginner can get to grips with it quite quickly. However, some of the lower end web hosting companies will use obscure and outdated software that just wastes your time as you try to figure it out. On one hosting package I had to submit a ticket just to add another domain to the hosting package. In cPanel, I can do it in around 4 clicks!

No upgrade packages. If the hosting company only offers the basic shared hosting package then think carefully before you commit. What if your business expands and you need additional server space or a dedicated server so that your site loads faster for the hundreds of thousands of visitors you're getting? You want a web hosting company who wants to be there for your business as you grow. If they don't offer that, then they are only interested in the here and now and that company could disappear in the blink of an eye!

Poor quality website. If their web site looks underdeveloped and amateur, that's a bad sign for their service too. Do they have live chat? FAQ's? Access to datacenter information? A forum? If you can't find any information from their site, don't bother hosting your site with them either.

Hopefully these things have given you some food for thought so that you can avoid them when choosing your web hosting company. To avoid jumping from company to company, try to pick a top quality, reputable hosting company right from the outset. The price difference is minimal, but the quality and reliability of server is vastly better!

Roy E Jones is a webmaster and blogger and recommends that to avoid all the bad web hosting companies out there you should use a company like Hostgator for all your web hosting needs! Article Source

©2009 Roy E. Jones. All rights reserved

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