Hosting mistakes you should watch out for – Feature Article

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

Expecting free web hosting solutions to be the answer.

Free web hosting usually fails to provide an extensive hosting package that will be able to cater to your specific needs. It might be lacking in technical support or be unable to run enough scripts for animation or video. You will almost definitely be bombarded by unsolicited third party advertisements and your SERP (search engine results page) rankings might suffer. Low cost hosting might also sound tempting, but many of these providers place bold advertisements on your site with the sole purpose of quickly redirecting the visitor to another site.

Not sticking to the basics.

It will be a rookie error to buy into something without first confirming that the basic company information of the hosting provider is legitimate. There should be valid contact details and a physical address on the hosting company’s website. You should also be aware of whether you are buying from the company directly or via a third party reseller. Buying from a reseller is not always a bad thing, but they too need some form of validation. Reading up on customer critiques can help – especially reviews posted on impartial websites.

Not asking the right questions.

Will it be possible to add statistics to your account? Can it handle numerous POP accounts? Will you be able to do your own software installation? Can you use Secure Shell and add a shopping cart? Will you have access to auto responders and URL redirection? Do you understand the hassles faced by not having these?

Unreachable technical support and not understanding Support Portal.

It is important to choose a hosting provider who has 24/7 technical support available so that no time or money is lost by unnecessary downtime. Someone should always be available to help you over the phone or at least with a quick live chat option. It is also important that your provider has a support portal where you can submit tickets and view their progress as your issue gets resolved.

Not paying attention to the small print.

We all tend to ignore the terms and conditions. It is, however, your responsibility to make sure that the terms of sale, deliverables, service description, cancellation and/or refund policies and so forth are all acceptable.

Not having enough Disk Space of Bandwidth.

If you do not expect that much traffic on your website at first, you should at least choose a provider that will allow your website to grow with the needs of your business. If you want to be cost effective, you might not necessarily need to start off with 10GB of bandwidth, but it is important to be able to upgrade if you should need to in the future.

Underestimating effects of Web Hosting on Search Engine Optimisation.

If you do not choose carefully you may end up with database connection errors and slow site speed. That, combined with hosting shared with low budget spam sites, might result in a dramatic decline in human users and Google bots alike.

Signing up with a new hosting company.

A hosting company’s track record immensely helps with establishing its legitimacy. Don’t settle for the new guy. It is a regular occurrence for a new hosting company to pop up with great opening specials and even greater promises, only to run out of server space and die a sudden death within its first year.

Not judging you provider by their own website.

If a provider did not bother to take the time to set up a proper informational website for themselves, why would they do anything more for their client? Make sure their own site is efficient, well organized and runs smoothly.

Relying on your hosting company for backup.

Do not procrastinate – make sure you are backing up your own information. It is not the hosting company’s responsibility so provide you with information should something go wrong.