Don't Make These Hosting Mistakes!

There are literally thousands of web hosting providers offering hundreds of solutions for businesses owners worldwide. However, choosing the right web hosting provider and having a clear understanding of what level of service your business requires can be a daunting task. Maybe you require lots of resources for cheap, maybe you require maximum stability and enterprise level support. NewTech focuses on providing hosting packages that provides the best of both. You'll get hosting resources that are more than enough for most users as well as expert support and blazing fast servers on an enterprise network. Click here to see why we can be Your Hosting Partner! 

•  Falling For The Price Trap

The call of low hosting prices is like a siren. There are reasonable budget-hosting solutions and there are outrageously low budget hosting almost guaranteed to become a nightmare. If the price makes you wonder how they make money then you can look forward to an extremely slow site or even denial of service because they maxed out the bandwidth. Not good. Trust your instincts and stay clear.

Many people think that all web hosts offer the same level of service within a certain price point. This could not be further from the truth. Fundamentally web hosting is web hosting but when you compare apples to apples you will find a broad range of differences that may or may not be a detriment to your business. Surprisingly the same web host provider that charges $5/month may have a direct competitor that charges $10/month for a comparable service plan. Remember that you get what you pay for. $5/month for 20 GB of space and 500 GB of bandwidth will probably not come with fast support and even worse your sites will probably be unstable and on overloaded crash prone servers.

•  Inexperienced Reseller or Not Researching Your Reseller

Hosting with a reseller is not a bad thing. In fact sometimes resellers give you very good support. But you need to do your second layer research. Sometimes a reseller is very good all around but inexperienced especially when it came to scripts and server environments. Some resellers also couldn't accommodate customer requests because the server administrators wouldn't work with them under any circumstance. This usually happens when the server administrators are bulk sellers who are disconnected from the end customer.

If the server administrators are not reliable or cannot accommodate you, don't hope your reseller can. Resellers should also have done their homework and know their servers as if their own.

•  Not Clearly Defining Your Requirements.

As an ongoing process you should keep a list of what resources your site needs and add to that list as you grow. One Webmaster was changing their static HTML pages to dynamic, which meant scripts were going to be used. Since the Webmaster didn't have a clear idea of what he would like to install and what these scripts required, he only found out after moving, the host servers were not compatible with the scripts. He lost months of work moving the sites in and out again.

•  Purchasing Hosting In An Auction

It might be a good place to pick up a deal but then you'll need to go back and review the first point. This is not to say all auctioned hosting is completely unreliable but in case you haven't noticed auctioned items have a good deal of terms and conditions attached, usually more than if purchased through the website. This makes your package very inflexible. Unless you review closely those terms or if you have a small static HTML pages with little ambition for the site, stay away or pay their regular website prices. This way the host will more likely work with your requirements.

•  Forgiving A Host's Bad Or Limited Website

If the host can't or won't take time to craft an informational site of their own, most likely they won't be too concerned about yours either. Cookie cutter sites are a dead giveaway.

•  Putting All The Eggs In One Basket

If you manage several sites, it seems like a good idea to have everything in one account. You can simplify your billing and get a better deal. Not always. We know of some webmasters who lost hours or work time because they couldn't work on anything since all their sites were down. If your site generates income and they are interconnected, having all sites down at once is bad business. There is an option to this though. Ask your host if they'll be willing to split your account across 2 or more physical servers.

•  Taking Testimonials At Face Value

Not all testimonials are created equal. You need to ask other webmasters, talk to their customers. If they don't list customer names on their site, ask them if you can contact any of their customers or if they'll contact you. If the host refuses, beware.

•  Not Keeping A Record Of Their Contact Information

Most of us are happy with email, forum and live support. However, take the time to record a physical address or telephone number as well as direct support email contacts.

•  Relying On Host Backups

This happens far too often. A customer or the host makes a mistake and data is lost. Always keep your own backups.

•  Trusting your host to have the latest software

Internet crime is and viruses are more prevalent than ever. New software or the latest versions are meant to plug security holes. Web hosts are responsible for maintaining their server software but not the scripts/software installed directly to customer sites. It is good advice to keep track of software updates for all of your websites.