Webhosting

Choosing a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. In fact, choosing any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for “web hosting” with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it’ll return over 5 million documents! That doesn’t mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That’s a lot of web hosts. How can you choose one that meets your need?

What is Budget web hosting anyway?

Budget web hosting is generally defined as any hosting service that is below $10 per month. The budget comes from the low price. Now, most companies in the budget web hosting category only offer one year plans. Most budget web hosting companies however, will quote you the monthly fee you would pay if you divided the annual fee by 12 months. Keep that in mind when you are comparing one company with another. The other thing to look out for is the setup fee. Do they charge you a setup fee to get started?

Evaluate your general impression of the company.

The first place to start evaluating budget web hosting companies is their front page. Does their website give you a sense that they are professional? Is it easy to find all of the information you need? Take a look at their contact information. Do they list a physical address, an email address and a phone number to contact them? If they don’t provide any contact details, that has to throw up a red flag. If you run into problems setting up your website, and you have no proper contact information, how are you going to get service from that company?

Do they have a toll free support number?

Does the budget web hosting company provide a toll free number for you to contact them? If they are based in Atlanta, Georgia and you are in Seattle, Washington, you don’t want to be paying long distance to them if you need to get them on the phone about a concern you have. A toll free number also speaks to their willingness to deal openly and honestly with their customers.

What kind of guarantee do they offer?

Choose a budget web hosting company that offers a good guarantee. Most budget web hosting companies don’t openly publish their satisfaction guarantees. If you have to look in their terms and services agreement to find out where they stand with regard to giving you back your money if you are not satisfied, you should look elsewhere.

What is the uptime guarantee of the site in question?

Uptime guarantee refers to the amount of time the server is live and serving your web pages. An uptime guarantee of 99% means that the host guarantees that their servers will be up and operational 99% of the time. Over the course of one year, 99% uptime would represent a downtime (the one percent) of around 87 hours in a year or an average of 7 hours per month. An uptime of 99.9% would involve only 8 hours of downtime for the entire year.

What kind of after sale support can you expect?

While there are many other factors you could consider, the final one I will deal with is after sale support. What kind of resources do they make available for you. Find out if the budget web hosting company offers free scripts. Do they have any marketing tools they can make available to you? What kind of support for setting up your account can you expect from the budget web hosting company? All of these factors must be taken into consideration.

Just because a company offers a budget web hosting service, doesn’t mean you necessarily have to compromise on features, quality or service. All three will only be found, however, if you make sure to do your homework to find a budget web hosting company that is a good fit for you.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a business web hosting company that specializes in helping online business owners increase their website traffic. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely.

When it comes to budget web hosting, there are a lot of dirty secrets that can really hurt your chance of success. However, if you know about these dirty secrets, you will be prepared and better able to handle any possible problems before they arise. Review the following secrets and make sure you know for sure what your web host is about before you sign up and risk your websites chance of success.

Secret #1 No Experience

There are many budget web hosts on the web that have not been around for very long and have little to no experience at all. The last thing you want to do is sign up with a company that is brand new and inexperienced and be part of their learning curve. Instead, find a web host that has years of experience and is happy to outline the year they started, their growth, and total experience level.

Secret #2 24/7 Support

If you are a company looking for a budget web host, all you want is to be pay less and still get all of the perks of more expensive web hosts, such as 24/7 support. Some budget web hosts do not offer any information on their level of support, but some claim to offer 24/7 support and then actually don’t. Before you sign any agreements with a budget web host, make sure you know whether they answer the phone at 3 a.m. on weekdays or anytime on weekends. Whether the phone is answered or not will be a very good sign as to whether you should sign up with them or keep searching.

Secret #3 Service Level Agreement

Read the service level agreement that is provided by the budget web host. If they do not have one then definitely move on, and if it is not a strong agreement that outlines exactly what will happen and the type of service you will receive in the event of a problem, then you should move on as well. The reason for this is because all web hosts will run into a glitch here or there and you need to know how that will be handled and how it will affect you before entering into the agreement.

Secret #4 Host?

Another dirty little secret is many budget web hosts companies are not solely web host companies but offer a variety of other businesses or products as well. You do not want to be in a situation such as this, you want a web host that only focuses on web hosting. Ask before you sign any agreements or give credit card numbers what kind of business they are and where their revenue comes from. This will help you make a decision about whether or not this is the web host for you.

There are many other dirty secrets that are swept under the carpet in regards to the budget web hosting business. The best thing you can do is to simply ask a lot of questions, do a little research, and use the answers you find to help you make your decision.

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