Cheap Hosting Traps - Clues To Help You Avoid Getting Caught

When searching for cheap hosting plans keep in mind the old adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"

Before you purchase your web hosting plan, do your research. Although you can easily find an affordable hosting plan, you need to look for the following clues before you invest in any plan. What may appear to be a great deal could actually cause you a lot of problems in the future. Here are the most common clues to look for before you spend your hard earned money on a cheap hosting plan.

Some cheap hosting providers offer what appears to be immense quantities of web space and bandwidth. Sounds like a great deal, but keep in mind that you are going to be sharing your server with an undisclosed number of other site owners Unlimited itself is a contradictory statement. Everything, from natural resources to human endurance has limitations. Every server has a limited quantity of space and bandwidth-unless you have a dedicated server, those resources that are being shared by other customers.

So why do they offer such huge quantities? Some web hosting providers are gamblers. They're betting you won't use the majority of your web space and bandwidth you purchased. They take a look at the stats of the server, and when they see that you and your fellow site owners are not using the entire allotment of space provided to you, they sell the same plan to another customer and then another.

But what happens if they sell the plan to some customers who consistently meet or exceed the quota of web space and bandwidth they purchased? CRASH! Your server is down and likely as not, the web provider's techs are scrambling to transfer your site to a less burdened server. Meanwhile all those lovely visitors clicking on those links you painstakingly worked so hard to established get a "404 page not found error" instead of an opportunity to explore your website.

There are very few websites which require huge amounts of space and bandwidth to operate successfully. You can easily determine your needs before you buy a web hosting plan. And you should definitely do the math and search for an affordable hosting plan that provides what you need. If the quantities of space and bandwidth seem excessively large, then be wary. You may find that your server experiences a lot of downtime due to overloads.

Selecting a plan which permits you to add on domains is a good idea if you plan to install more sites on your account. If that's the case, then that "unlimited add on domains offer" sounds like your best bet. However, keep in mind that each domain you add on is going to consume a portion of your web space and bandwidth. Every time you add another domain with moderate to heavy traffic, you are also increasing the amounts of space and bandwidth you are using. Over extend the resources available to you, and you may find all your web sites shutdown in one fell swoop or a hefty bill for the excess usage on your account.

Do the math and make sure the quantity of space and bandwidth you purchase will support the domains you intend to add on. While you're at it, you should also check the Terms of Service (TOS) to see if the web hosting provider specifies a limit on the quantity of files on your account. If this is the case, adding on more domains to your account could result in your exceeding the file limitations set by your web hosting provider very quickly.

While researching our competition, I checked out a popular cheap hosting site which boasts over a million customers. A statement on the site really caught my attention. The owner claimed that should you have an unresolved problem, you simply had to contact him and he would personally see to it that the issue was resolved for you. Amazing! Now that sounds like the web provider offers excellent support -- or does it?

Here's another old adage to give you a hint: "You can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." So with that in mind, let's take a closer look at that amazing promise.

Let's say that our enthusiastic web hosting provider managed to please 99% of those million customers he has right now. Let's say that on any given day only a measly 1% of his customers were not satisfied with the support they received and only 1/2 of those disgruntled customers decided to take the owner up on his offer and sent him an email to request that he handle the problem personally.

Guess what. That measly one half of one percent is 5,000 customers folks! That's 5,000 emails per day the owner would have to deal with personally in order to fulfill his promise. Could you give 5,000 people your personal attention every day? Could you even find time to read 5000 emails every day? Of course not. Neither could I. That's why a good hosting provider has an excellent support staff available to handle problems and complaints as quickly and efficiently as possible in the first place.

Frankly, this amazing offer raised a red flag in my mind instead of providing the assurance of good support that the owner no doubt intended. I asked myself why the owner felt it was necessary to make a promise like that? Is he getting a lot of complaints about his support staff from his current customers? Has he lost customers because of dissatisfaction with the support system or his services. Which leads us to...

Before selecting a hosting provider, you should do a search for reviews of the company. An old sales and marketing adage is that a satisfied customer may tell one person about a company while a dis-satisfied customer will tell five people about their experience. So if you want some clues about the quality of the support you can expect simply use dear old Google.

Failure to find any reviews or comments about a web hosting provider at all is not necessarily a bad sign, since this can be attributed to several factors, such as whether they offer an affiliate program to provide an incentive to write a review etc.. What you should be on the lookout for are complaints about the web hosting provider which you will usually find in forums. Any complaints you find can help you determine what issues you may face in future, and decide for yourself whether these issues will affect your ability to make full use the provider's services.

Is it worth the time to do research? Of course it is! When you purchase a hosting plan, you are purchasing the path to to your company's front door that your customer's will use. Anything that blocks that path can adversely affect your business. So by all means, take a few brief minutes to do your research before you buy that affordable hosting plan from any provider.

Some web hosting providers display the lowest priced hosting plan they offer in big bold type on the web page. Scroll down a bit and make sure there are no strings attached to their offer. Look for answers to the following questions:

1. Do you only get that price if you pay for one, two or even three years in advance?

2. Does the provider only offer annual payment plans?

3. Will you have to pay a higher price if you want to pay on a monthly basis?

4. If you pay in advance and later decide to move your site to a new host, will the provider refund your money for the unused term, or does your contract have a no refund clause?

The hidden prices tactic is one of my personal pet peeves. Which is why our company, Topcat Hosting, only offers a monthly payment plan option with a "what you see is what you get" price for each of our affordable web hosting plans. (Sorry, couldn't resist tooting the horn a bit. lol)

Read the sales contract or the terms of sales BEFORE you pay for your web hosting plan. Not all web hosting providers offer a refund for advance payments. A few providers demand written notice in advance of cancellation of your account before they will issue a refund.

Even if you always pay your bills promptly, stuff happens, bills get lost or overlooked. So find out what happens if you fail to pay your account on time. Some web hosting provider simply suspend your account for nonpayment until you make your payment. Others may automatically delete all your files after a specified number of days past due.

If you signed up for a specified term, then later decide to switch from your shared hosting plan to a dedicated server or move to a new host, some providers will demand payment for the full contract term of your shared hosting agreement up front. So learn what to expect ahead of time, to keep it from happening to you..

Just about every hosting provider restricts the number of emails you may send per hour. The restriction is set because sending large quantities of emails can substantially slow down the server's response time. Since you are sharing the server, slowing the response time affects all the other websites hosted on the server as well as your own.

Most web hosting providers do not broadcast this limitation. In fact, some providers do not even specify the quantity of emails you may send per hour in their terms of service at all. Unless you specifically ask the provider beforehand, you may not learn what the limitations on sending emails are until you have exceeded that limit or until your provider has suspended your account and/or charged you a fee for the surplus emails you sent out.

Frankly, If you intend to send out mass mailings on a regular basis, you should use an auto-responder service. Besides saving a lot of time on your mailings, auto responder services provide a number of features that web mail is not equipped to do, for instance: scheduling your mailings to go out on specified days, tracking capabilities and spam bot workaround software. These features can help you increase the profit potential of your emails substantially.

As stated earlier, some web hosting providers also set limitations on the number of files you can upload to your site. If you operate a large web site, you could quickly exceed the limit, and find yourself dealing with sudden shutdowns of your web site and lost data because some providers may automatically erase the files when a customer exceeds their limits.

Another limitation that is often unadvertised is the use of scripts on your site. Before you purchase your web hosting plan, be sure the scripts you need to run on your site are permitted by the provider, otherwise you may find your site shutdown and your account suspended until the script is removed.

Perhaps the most important consideration of all is what limitations the hosting provider sets on the templates they provide you to use for building your website. Read the fine print carefully. Some providers limit the usage rights for their templates, allowing you to use them only as long as you maintain an account with their company. Should you decide to move your site to another web hosting provider in the future, you may find you have to leave the template behind and build your entire site all over again.

Always keep in mind that purchasing a web hosting plan is a business deal between you and your hosting provider, and treat it as such. Make sure you take time to read the fine print carefully before you agree to the terms. Investing a small amount of time now could save you a substantial amount of time and money later.