If you’ve stumbled short in your search for a decent web host, or fallen foul of misleading marketing which failed to deliver on its promise, then this article will set you on the right path towards finding a web hosting package you can rely on.
By Harvey Raybould, MD, Compila Ltd.
There are over 10 billion web pages online today, each of which is hosted by one of 1,000s of web hosting companies. With so much to choose from, identifying the right package first time, even for people who have been using the internet for a number of years, it's not always easy.
However, armed with the right information it’s possible to see through the veil of myths spun by over enthusiastic marketing, and side step the pitfalls hidden in lengthy terms and conditions.
> Start at the beginning
By far the biggest pitfall of all is the most obvious. The simple fact that many people don’t actually know, or fully understand what web hosting is. Definitions offered on websites like Wikipedia, or whatis.com tend to be written like a dictionary entry, which while well written, reveal nothing about how to enter into a business relationship with a web host.
“Hosting (also known as Web site hosting, Web hosting, and Webhosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more web sites.”
Using a definition like this to help you make a purchase decision, is a bit like using the dictionary definition of a car to buy a car. You’ll know it has four wheels, runs on petrol or diesel, but have no idea that you have a choice about size, efficiency, comfort, or style.
Not a lot of help to be honest.
Here’s a different tack
‘If you create a website and want it to be seen by visitors on the web, you have to upload it to a server. A server is a powerful computer, that is connected to the Internet 24/7 365 days a year. You either buy or rent a small section of the server to store your web pages. The company who supply the server to you, is your web host. It’s their job to make your web pages available to anyone who looks for your web site address via a search engine, or web link, using a web browser such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. How well they are able to do this, - how fast, how efficiently, how securely - will determine your purchase decision”
> The four main types of web hosting
Having established a basic definition of what web hosting is, it’s important to know the different types of web hosting available, so you can tell one from the other when making your choice.
Shared Hosting, is by far the most recommended, and relevant to the needs of a majority of users, especially small businesses or non profit organizations.
Shared Hosting refers to a paid web hosting service where many websites reside on one server which is connected to the Internet. Each site has its own section on the server to keep it separate from other sites. This is generally the most economical way of paying for hosting, and better than free hosting because it allows you to have your own domain name (compila.com, google.co.uk, bbc.co.uk etc) and provides you access to a multitude of other services, such as receiving and sending of email, software installation, databases, e-commerce solutions and hopefully quality technical support.
By contrast Free Hosting is, as the name suggests free, meaning that you will not pay a monthly subscription fee for it. However, nothing in life is truly free, and Free Hosting services will require you to allow the hosting company to provide adverts on your website. This is how they generate their revenue.
It’s true they will often allow you to select the type of adverts you want to run on your site, and yet that will always limit the freedom you have to present your website the way you want to. Moreover, the risk will be that having arrived at your website a potential visitor will leave it immediately by clicking on one of the ads through to another site.
In addition, the resilience of the servers and software used to support them is not always good. There can be limitations relating to software support, database functionality and more importantly technical support. Free web hosts will usually provide a subdomain (yoursite.freehost.com) or a directory (www.freehost.com/~yourname) as your web address, which in most cases looks unprofessional from a business point of view.
Free Hosting is only recommended for small personal sites that do not have a lot of traffic and definitely not for someone serious about promoting their business on the web.
Recent advancements in both hardware and software technology, particularly in the areas of virtualization, enable one physical server computer to be partitioned into multiple servers. This is known as Virtual Private/Dedicated Servers or (VPS or VDS).
Each virtual server has the appearance and capabilities of running as a dedicated machine, can run its own operating system, be independently rebooted and run its own combination of software. VPS or VDS hosting has many great advantages for customers requiring more advanced requirements, but without the cost of a fully dedicated server solution.
By contrast Dedicated Hosting offers, as the name suggests, one server dedicated solely to your web site. You do not have to share any server resources, processing power, memory, or hard drive space, with any other website. This form of hosting is recommended for sites with high amounts of traffic, especially if you need increased reliability, speed, security or specific software is required.
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive and can often require high degrees of technical knowledge.
So now that you can clearly identify the type of web hosting package that will meet your needs, let’s take a look at some of the myths marketers spin, and the pitfalls they hide in the small print.
> Seeing hidden charges through the hype
Unfortunately in some cases your initial annual or monthly payment may not be the only fee you end up paying. As long as the host makes you aware of these before you sign up and you agree to them, then this is a perfectly acceptable procedure.
However, the fees that are stuck away deep down in their terms and conditions are the ones to be careful about. These hidden or ‘not so obvious’ charges, will often include, FrontPage Extensions; Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus; Transfer to and away charges; Setup fees; Email and Web forwarding; Mysql databases; Comprehensive web site statistics; and Backups.
Be sure to read the promotional literature clearly, so the plan you sign up for includes all the features you require, and will not require you to pay extra or upgrade your plan to get them.
Beware too of deals for Free Hosting as a way of enticing you to upgrade to a more expensive plan, or a free Trial Period on the plan you actually want. This is almost standard practice today and can be misleading.
In the case of free hosting often certain features are disabled, or will only include very small amounts of bandwidth - which determines how many site visitors the server can simultaneously accommodate. This can result in your site being suspended prematurely because you have exceeded the bandwidth limit, and all your hard work in creating the site will go to waste.
In the case of free trial periods, after the trial has expired and especially if you have already given your credit card details, you may be swapped over to a different, much more expensive hosting plan.
Another similar way hosting companies may lure you in is with special offers that offer a reduced fee for 3 months or the first month free. Make sure you know the price you will eventually be paying, and check to see if this price is actually competitive. If it is then great, you will have found a very good deal.
> The limitations of Unlimited, Unlimited, Unlimited
All over the web today hosting companies are offering unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. Are these really legitimate offers or marketing gimmicks? To find out, make sure you read their terms and conditions in full because in a lot of cases they will have strict controls over these unlimited offers.
At Compila, for example, we only offer one unlimited disk space package our Reseller Pro account. This is a specialist package for web designers, tailored to their specific needs. We have adopted this policy because we want to supply customers with exactly what they buy and not have to remove or suspend them for over using resources.
Be sure, therefore, not to rush in and sign up for an ‘Unlimited’ offer, especially when you will never be able to fully use the ‘bandwidth’ and ‘storage space’ on offer.
> The myth of 100% uptime guarantees
Finally, only in very exceptional circumstances can a host deliver a 100% uptime guarantee. There are just too many factors that can affect this, such as power outages, human errors, server or network failure, upstream provider problems, software errors etc. If this is something of high importance to your business and you choose a host because they are claiming a 100% uptime guarantee, please make sure you talk to them first and investigate all of their potential points of failure.
In a crowded marketplace, it’s natural for companies to aggressively market themselves, as a way of standing out, and getting noticed. There will always be special offers, and often special offers can save you lots of money.
However it’s important to remember that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.
So, before clicking Yes, make sure you know what type of hosting you require, which plan you are really signing up for or will eventually be on after any promotional offer has expired. A little patience now, may ultimately serve you in the long term.
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