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I’ve been running websites online for
about 6 years now and have gone through nearly a dozen web
hosts, some good others just plain awful. So in an effort
to help you save some time and money I’m writing this
article to teach you what to look for when choosing a web
hosting provider.
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My Hosting Experience
First I’m going to start off by telling you how I started
out. For me the most important thing was price, so I looked for
the cheapest provider and basically picked blindly. Since I was
starting out and had nearly no experience or traffic to my site,
this wasn’t too bad. Sure my site wasn’t up all the
time and I had no database support, but it was cheap and this
was ok with me. But as my site grew and my need for a database
increase, I quickly realized I needed to switch web hosts.
So when the time came to switch I went big. I found a web host
that was extremely popular, had thousands of clients, and all
the features I needed in a web host. Of course this wasn’t
cheap either and I went from spending $1 per month to $20 per
month. And it was a disaster. Absolutely one of the worst hosting
providers I have had to date. Support was non existent, limited
bandwidth, my site was constantly down during peak hrs and I wasn't
even getting that much traffic! So even though I was no where
near my monthly bandwidth limit my site was constantly down. Just
the worst host I’ve ever had.
Since then I have done my research and have had mostly smooth
sailing.
The reason I wanted to share my early experience with you is
because it just goes to show you that it doesn’t matter if
you select a small company or a large one, if you don’t do
the research before hand you can get screwed either way.
Web Hosting Rating Sites
First you need to learn that web hosting rating sites are NOT
very accurate. Most of those sites sell there top spots to web
hosts or use referral links to get a commission each time someone
clicks or signs up through them. I never use them and would not
recommend choosing a host from one of those sites.
Test Support
The most important thing you can do is test out the support first
hand. Send in an email asking some question, if it takes longer
then 1 day move on, there are better hosts out there.
Customer Reviews
This is also important, but again you need to be cautions where
you get your reviews. I honestly wouldn’t trust any web hosting
rating site with customer reviews. Instead I would go to web developer
site such as webshostingtalk.com, sitepoint.com or bluesfear.com
and just ask around to find out what people use and their experiences
with their host.
Small Host vs Large Hosts
I have had good experiences with both small web hosting companies
and larger ones. But I’ve also been in the situation where
my small web host provider was purchased by a large one and everything
went to hell. Personally I like web hosts that are small/medium
size and have been around for some time. From my experience they
have much better support because they are counting on word of
mouth to get their name out there and don’t have 50,000 customers
bugging them all day.
The problem with small/medium web hosts is that there seems to
be millions of them. So what do you look for to narrow it down?
Looking at there plans is one way. If they are offering a ton
of space and bandwidth for $2.95/month, don’t even bother
because they are overselling their servers like crazy. You might
get a great deal, but when you site is down all day cause the
server load is sky high you won’t think so then. That goes
double for anyone offering unlimited space or bandwidth, just
run away from these sites, most likely they will go out of business
in 6 months.
Conclusion
Before picking a web host look at their plans, test out there
support and try to find people that actually use them to see what
they think. It’s a rough internet out there, but having a
great web host provider can make it much easier.
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