Web Hosting Report

7 Ways Bad Hosting Will Damage Your Business

Note: If you want to cut to the chase, these are the top hosting companies I recommend (in order) and if you want to find out why, then go ahead and read the article below . . .
1. Liquid Web
2. Fused Network
3. Host Gator*

Also, if you need domain name registration with no funny business, great support and a fast, well designed interface, I now only use and recommend NameCheap.com

Believe it or not, many expert web developers and design agencies have stumbled and made a terrific error. They made it more than once too, until the reality was impossible to ignore. There’s no such thing as free hosting.

The Web Hosting Mirage
Web hosting companies are offering practically everything under the sun for almost nothing and it sure looks great. The obvious question is, “Why on earth would I pay more than a few dollars a month to host my website when there are so many companies practically giving it away?” The answer is easy, when you know how the system works.

How Some Companies Wiggle Out of Their Promise
There is always a “gotcha” with every company that offers unlimited storage and bandwidth for almost nothing. Most companies hide limitations to your account in the fine print, or create dependencies that result in your inability to use all the resources they advertise. Here are just three common ways some web hosting companies get around their promise of unlimited everything for practically nothing:

1. If they offer an enormous amount of space, it’s likely that they will have a file number limit that means even if you have space left, but you have surpassed the number of files they allow, they will shut down your account.
2. Or, they may say, “sure use all the space with as many files as you want, but if you get too much traffic, then we’ll shut down your account.”
3. Or, they may say, “sure, use all the traffic and space and files, but if you use too much of the processor time on the server, we’ll shut down your account.” (This can happen if you have a blog that suddenly gets popular, or host a forum for your clients, or have some type of database-driven application on your site.)

Granted, sometimes they will only suspend your account until you correct the violation of their terms of service, but by then the damage is done and in many cases, it’s so easy to violate the terms (especially when your site becomes successful) that after a number of violations, they will ask you to pay them more money and upgrade, or permanently close your account.

What is Overselling?
When the hosting is super cheap, your account is usually placed on a computer with 100s of other accounts and the cheaper the cost to you, the more websites will most likely be on that same computer. In some cases there could be 300, 400, 500 or more web sites on that one server. If every site used all the resources offered, it would require much more space and server power than the server would ever have. Selling more resources than you have is, strangely enough, called overselling.

The web hosting companies who do this are banking on the statistical probability that the majority of web sites will never use 1/100th of the resources promised. For the most part, this works since most sites are tiny and never get any traffic. However, if you plan to be successful, then you are all but guaranteeing that you’ll be the exception and will lose the probability gamble. And when your site actually needs those promised resources and they aren’t available, you’ll be wishing you’d paid a few extra dollars for better quality hosting.

The truth is you don’t need all the extreme drive space, unlimited bandwidth and CPU power that you’re being sold, in most cases. All you need is a moderate amount of space with guaranteed access to the resources you are promised. Good quality shared hosting has a low number of websites allowed on the server and every bit of space and processor power sold is available for each account.

Why Should I Care?
Let’s imagine for a moment that you’ve just sent out your newsletter with that great new service, or product that you just starting selling on your fancy new web site. You finally got everything up and now people start clicking the link in your email and coming to your site in droves. But unfortunately, you’ve crossed the line and blown it with the terms of service somewhere along the line and your site has been suspended. Even worse, you won’t even know it until one of your clients hits your site and finds the dreaded “404 Not Found” error, or possibly the “503 Service Unavailable” error, or the most damaging ever “Account Suspended” message. What happens next is pretty predictable and, sadly, completely avoidable.

Here’s how you damage your business:

1. You lose credibility as a business in the minds of your visitors and clients.
2. You lose sales.
3. You lose email (remember, your email is down if your site is down.)
4. You lose time wasted tracking down the problem.
5. You lose referrals from folks who thought you were a reputable business.
6. You lose new customers who just found your site and only saw an error instead.
7. You lose sleep wondering how you will make sure this will never happen again.

Obviously, everything hinges on having a rock-solid, reliable website.

The Price Suddenly Changed at Checkout Time!
The last thing to note about many of the incredible deals you’ll see is the fact that the final price they are advertising frequently does not include all the bells and whistles they mentioned in the ad. In fact, you will frequently have to pay for each bell and whistle as an addon “feature” if you want to get the total package as advertised and it will definitely be a different price than the one they used to get your attention in the first place. If you sense that’s what’s going on, move on. I guarantee there’s a better deal elsewhere.

So How Do You Find the Good Companies?
I ran my own hosting company for the last six years and learned firsthand how all this stuff works. I learned all the hidden secrets and pitfalls that await the innocent business owner who simply wants to put up a website. If you’re feeling that it must be impossible to find decent hosting, fear not. There really are some great hosting companies out there.

Look for answers to these questions:

1. Do they emphasize service and support? That’s a good sign. If you ever need help you’ll be glad you have someone to call at any time of the day.
2. Do they have a moderately higher price than average and offer fewer resources than the super cheap companies? Also a good sign. This means they are probably not overselling and you will actually be able to use the services you were promised. (Double check and verify this! Just ask them if they oversell; the good companies are proud to say they do not.)
3. How is their support? Have you tested it? They should offer 24/7 telephone support as well as a trouble ticketing system. They should respond to tickets within a few hours at most and within an hour on average.

If it’s insanely cheap with outlandish storage and unending bandwidth, it’s too good to be true. Definitely look somewhere else for hosting.

The top web hosting company I have used for years and happily recommend over and over again to all my clients is Liquid Web. They’re located in Michigan and have an outstanding record.

Premier Dedicated Hosting
If you need rock-solid shared hosting with excellent support you will pay about double the bottom-of-the-barrel pricing that most companies are charging (which is still incredibly inexpensive for such an important part of your business) and you will never regret it. You can also pay a month-to-month fee since Liquid Web doesn’t require a one year pre-payment (like other cheap hosts do) to get their advertised price.

If it’s dedicated hosting you need, Liquid Web has one of the best networks and reputations in the industry. My dedicated servers have never gone down while I’ve been with them.

Outstanding Performance and Support for Shared Hosting
If you need a lower price, but refuse to compromise on support or performance I think you’ll be thrilled with Fused Network. I think their WordPress hosting support is second to none.

*Best Low-Priced Shared Hosting
Even though they DO oversell (or so they did at the time I wrote this, as far as my research has revealed) Host Gator has the best possible support I believe you can get for bargain basement hosting prices. I only recommend this if you have a fairly small site with little or moderate traffic. If you are hosting a large forum or heavily trafficked WordPress site, this is not the right choice.

If you have any remaining questions at all, please leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer.

All the best!

-Zack