Lots of people are looking for cheap hosting solutions. It is
also true that the price of hosting has decreased over the past few years. It is
now more affordable than ever to host your website. One should be careful
however, of opting for the very cheapest that you can find. Most often, these
providers do overselling. This basically works on almost the same principle as
airlines that do overbooking. Because airlines realize that about 10% to 15% of
people who book their tickets will actually never make it to the plane, the
allow overbooking of tickets of up to 10%.
The trouble comes when EVERYONE decides to pitch up and use their tickets. That
is when you get long queues, grumbling passengers and air hostesses that seem to
have smiles pasted onto their faces....
The problem is that hosting providers often sell large amounts of hard disk
space and bandwidth for very cheaply, knowing full well that you will never use
the space. The problem comes in when everyone starts unexpectedly using all
their space and bandwidth allocated to them. Then everyone suffers.
But let's look at the principles of shared hosting - what it is and who it works
for.
~Shared Hosting~
Shared hosting is the best solution for most small and medium websites. The most
important advantage is cost. Shared hosting is much cheaper and affordable than
hosting on dedicated servers.
Even though in theory you should just sign up for the features that you will
really need and thereby avoid paying extra costs, the truth is that web hosting
packages are really becoming more and more feature rich while becoming cheaper
at the same time. You will therefore GET a lot of features whether you need them
or not. This is not a bad thing since it does mean that you can easily upgrade
your account or install new software when you find that you are requiring more
functionality than when you started.
Shared hosting is also good for web hosting companies. It can host hundreds of
small and medium websites on a single server. This reduces the installation and
maintenance costs, and gives the hosting company a higher return on investment.
Because of the danger of overselling however, you should ensure that the company
uses state-of-the art servers with high processing power. These servers should
be connected to the Internet on high speed bandwidth lines so that there is no
choking when the traffic spurts. Most of these companies do advertise the type
of servers that they use. If they do not disclose their server specifications,
it might be better to steer away from them. Ask a friend, family member or
Internet expert for assistance in trying to understand which servers are good
and which are not.
You should be able to upgrade easily between packages should the need arise to
move to a larger server or more bandwidth.
The web host must also offer 24x7 toll-free technical support rendered by
experienced and professionally trained technicians.
You especially need to check whether the hosting company owns servers or is
reselling hosting solutions. The latter situation is not conducive for your
needs because the web host is only a middleman and is not in control of the
solutions that he is selling. You may find that the services provided are not in
keeping with the promises made.
~Your exit strategy~
You must always have a backup plan in case your web host goes bankrupt. This
should include maintaining a backup of all your data you post on the web site.
You should not depend on the backups done by the hosting company themselves but
should make sure that you run your own backups through the control panel (and
you definitely SHOULD have a control panel!)
This is also why you should always register your domain name with an independent
registrar and not with the hosting company itself, since if they do go bankrupt,
you might not only lose your website content, but your complete domain.