Which web host is right for your money making site?

Yes, there are millions of webhosts out there, and what makes it more difficult, they all advertise 100% uptime and a lot of features, but as we all know, it’s impossible to have a perfect provider. This time I will try to provide some tips so that you can be sure that you’re using the right host for your money making website.

Things to look for in your new web host:

1. A nice support tickets system, a phone number to contact support and maybe a live support system.

2. Some kind of money backed uptime guarantee, most webhosts will advertise some kind of guarantee, but please make sure that they’ll actually honor that guarantee or that they will somehow compensate their customers in case of downtime. Keep in mind that every minute your website is down will halt your earnings.

3. Multi-path connections to the Internet. A webhost that is “single-homed” or that just has connections to one single provider will be most likely to suffer downtime due to issues with that specific provider, while a webhost that has more than one link to the Internet will be able to re-route traffic through other paths while they (or they provider) fix the issue with the failing link.

4. Unix based plans, it’s always cheaper, easier and more secure to host your website in a unix-based server. “Unix-based” means every flavor of Linux, BSD or Unix. Also keep in mind that there are tons of free scripts that you an use in your money making website that are available for free but that are designed to run in unix-based servers. Scripts for windows-based servers aren’t cheap and aren’t that easy to find.

5. Make sure that your webhost supports .htaccess redirection and URL-rewrite, since those features are mandatory for a nice SEO optimized website.

6. Try their support late at night, early in the morning and during regular working hours… also try weekends. That’s the only way to make sure that they are actually staffed 24/7! Your website could go down at 4 a.m. and there has to be someone available to bring it back online.

Things to avoid:

1. “Unlimited” webhosts. Just using that term as a sales pitch is a good thing to look for and run away. There’s nothing really “unlimited”, everything has a limit, either imposed by the provider or by the hardware/network limitations. Webhosts advertising “unlimited” hosting will sooner or later suspend websites that are really using a lot of resources, so it’s always better to run away from them.

2. Dirt cheap webhosts. Do the math, a well managed server will never hold more than 200 accounts (well it can host over a million, but in order to keep the service at a decent level, a webhost shouldn’t host more than 200 accounts in a single server). A decent dedicated server costs something between US$90.00-US$200.00 so the provider has a cost per account that ranges from US$0.45 and US$1.00 per month, plus they have wages to pay, rent, power, phone lines, etc. So if you see a webhost with plans under US$5.00/month it is mostly sure that they are overselling or that they really don’t have the infrastructure or staff they try to make you think they do.

3. The reseller of the reseller of the reseller. Even though there are some pretty good resellers, most webhosting startup businesses will go for a reseller account with a bigger provider in order to keep their costs down. The issue is that maybe they’re not even getting the reseller account from a real provider, but from another reseller. If you keep tracking up the “providers chain” you’ll find that there are 2 or 3 steps before getting to the actual owner of the hardware. The main risk when signing up with a reseller is that as most of them are just starting their hosting companies, they also tend to go bankrupt or disappear. Also, most resellers run are a one-man show that runs his/her business from a basement or a bedroom, so you can’t expect true 24/7 support.

4. Webhosts that try to push you into registering your domain name with them. You never know when a webhost will go out of business or what their code of ethics is. So the safest way is to register your domain name with a domain registrar and get your webhosting ONLY with the web host. If the host goes out of business overnight you can just point your domain to a new host and upload a copy of your website, so the downtime is as minimal as possible.

Things or features that seem important but aren’t that important.

1. Money-back or free trial periods. Some webhosts will allow you to cancel your account within a specific timeframe and will return your money if you aren’t satisfied with the service. However some webhosts will take you through a never ending process in order to get your money back, or they simply won’t refund it. Also keep in mind that the service might not fail during the “risk free” trial period but that doesn’t mean that they won’t fail after that.

2. Company and brand logos everywhere. Most webhosts love to display the logos of all software providers, hardware manufacturers, brands, carriers, and even clothes they use, however that doesn’t mean that those companies (most of the are very respectable) are actually backing up the web host.

3. Flashy website. The biggest webhosts have the simplest websites. It’s those hosts that are desperate to get new customers that invest more time into their websites than into their network/servers.

Hope this helps you avoid headaches with non-professional webhosts.