How to Select A Good Cheap Host and What to Look For
Just as with many of the other purchases you make your first impulse when choosing a cheap website hosting service is to select what you can afford and of course to the casual observer they all seem the same anyway.
But take note that nothing could be further from the truth! Every cheap host is different!!
Don’t Consider Price Only!
When choosing a cheap web hosts service you should be more objective, because money and cost are not the only criteria that separate one webhosting company from the other and in many cases they are not the most important. So read web host reviews.
Selecting a company based on price alone is not the way to go as you really need to consider all the other parts of the cheap host service being offered to see which company actually offers the best value for money overall based on the many resources they provide.
Capacity is Key
For instance check if your cheap website hosting provider has the capacity to handle the potential load from your website or blog and still deliver good performance to each visitor.
Most of the reputable and larger hosting companies will advertise the fact that they have a huge bandwidth capacity and literally hundreds of servers and in most cases they will be telling the truth.
However you have to realize that there is normally a difference between stated capacity and really usable capacity. If the cheap host you want to use has thousands of sites with maybe millions of unique visitors every day then the actual or spare capacity available could be much lower.
Make sure you always check the spare or free capacity figure and ensure you get some real and reliable numbers for your cheap web hosts company. If you do not understand the information they give you then get help form someone more knowledgeable. Also read some web host reviews to get used to the jargon and terminology they use, as this will help you understand so much more.
Reliablity is Essential
Reliability of the service is another key requirement of any and every cheap website hosting account. Even if you are provided with a lot of power and capacity it is totally worthless if it is not there 100% of the time. Unfortunately outages whether due to power or other technical issues are just a normal part of any business and you need to be aware of this.
Even the mighty Google and Microsoft suffer and go down from time to time, but not very often. They have fall-over and redundancy plans that kick in when problems occur. What this means is that if their website does go down it is back online again very quickly. In fact you might never see the problem because a backup server will kick in automatically and instantly. They do not use a cheap host however and they will be paying big bucks for their own servers.
Check very closely what the cheap web hosts company claims about their up time. Many often claim 99.6% or higher and this should be considered a minimum. Unfortunately sometime these figures are manipulated to appear better than they really are so check carefully before buying.
Remember your visitors need to be able to view your site at any time of the day or night and whenever they want to. 100% up-time is ideal but in practice not reachable, so 99% should be considered a good number.
Fast Technical Problem Resolution Is Required
Try to find out from your potential cheap website hosting company what systems and applications both technical and human manned that they have put in place to deal with any sort of failure both serious and les serious. All the best web host reviews will give a company that provides good support a high rating and so they should because it really is that important!
Inevitably servers at all web hosts, not just cheap hosts, can and will go down. Also sometimes networks will fail and your hard disks can have errors and lose your data even if the other parts of the webhost’s infrastructure continue to work ok.
Unfortunately the result for you is dramatic as your website or blog is totally unavailable, which is the worst scenario possible. Your web host company should easily be able to deal with situations like this and have your site up and working again very quickly for your visitors.
Best scenario for good customer and technical support is 24/7 phone support which connects you quickly through to a knowledgeable technical support person, who can actually do the work required to resolve any issues you may have at the time. This can be hard to find if you are looking for a cheap host only.
Be Secure At All Times
Security is also something which you have to consider very seriously. As viruses and spam continue to increase and become more sophisticated you really need to know that you potential cheap web hosts have all the latest methods and resources for detecting and then dealing with them.
This will mean that your chosen company needs to have a good technical plan in place and adequately trained staff who are knowledgeable and confident in dealing with any problems that may occur.
As always, prevention is definitely better then the cure, and you need to be confident in your web hosts ability to support you and this includes a good and easy to use communication channel to the person that matters at your web host so that you can find someone quickly who can help with your problem.
Find What You Really Need Before You Consider The Price
All the criteria outlined above are critical when selecting the right cheap website hosting company that can deliver the services and support that you are going to need when running your website or blog.
Only when your specific criteria have been met should you compare the different pricing or deals available at each company on your web-hosting short list.
Related Posts
Comments
Leave a Reply
-
Recommended Wordpress Hosting
-
Recommended Green Hosting
-
Recommended Reseller Hosting
