Choosing Web Hosting Companies Without Making a Costly Mistake
Web hosting companies all promise the moon for the price of a sandwich. Then you launch, traffic spikes, and your site falls over like a house of cards. A baker I know ran a holiday promotion, emailed two thousand people, and watched her order page go down within minutes. Support replied days later. The cakes sold out anyway, but only because she started taking orders by text message. Cute story. Expensive lesson. 
Read the Uptime Promise With Suspicion "99.9% uptime" sounds flawless. It actually allows almost nine hours of downtime a year. The next tier, 99.99 percent, shrinks that to less than an hour. More important is what happens when the company misses its own number. Do you get a service credit? How much? A promise with no penalty is just a marketing claim. Test Support Before You Buy Open a chat window and ask something a little uncomfortable. "How do I move my site to you, and what happens if it breaks?" Time the reply. Judge the tone. Did you get a generic help article, or an useful explanation from a real support agent? Someday website you'll be typing to these folks at 2 a.m., sweating. Pick people who communicate clearly. Look at the Renewal Price The intro price is only the beginning. Plenty of plans increase substantially after the first term. The renewal rate hides in the small print, so go find it. Then ask yourself whether you'll still be happy with the deal in year two. Ask Where the Backups Live Daily backups stored on the same server as your site are like keeping your backup key under the same doormat. Ask for backups stored somewhere separate from the hosting server. Ask how long a restore takes. Ask whether it costs extra. If the answer to that last one is a nervous laugh, walk away. Match the Plan to Your Traffic Shared hosting suits a small website or a brand-new blog. Your neighbors share the same resources, though, and one resource-hungry site can slow everybody down. If you sell products or expect sudden bursts of visitors, look at a VPS or a managed plan. Upgrade paths matter too, so find out how easy it is to switch tiers later. Always Have an Exit Strategy Can you move your files and database without a headache? Are there fees to leave? Keep your domain name registered in an account you control, separate from the host. That way, if things stop working out, you walk out carrying your belongings instead of arguing with a company that controls your property.
Read the Uptime Promise With Suspicion "99.9% uptime" sounds flawless. It actually allows almost nine hours of downtime a year. The next tier, 99.99 percent, shrinks that to less than an hour. More important is what happens when the company misses its own number. Do you get a service credit? How much? A promise with no penalty is just a marketing claim. Test Support Before You Buy Open a chat window and ask something a little uncomfortable. "How do I move my site to you, and what happens if it breaks?" Time the reply. Judge the tone. Did you get a generic help article, or an useful explanation from a real support agent? Someday website you'll be typing to these folks at 2 a.m., sweating. Pick people who communicate clearly. Look at the Renewal Price The intro price is only the beginning. Plenty of plans increase substantially after the first term. The renewal rate hides in the small print, so go find it. Then ask yourself whether you'll still be happy with the deal in year two. Ask Where the Backups Live Daily backups stored on the same server as your site are like keeping your backup key under the same doormat. Ask for backups stored somewhere separate from the hosting server. Ask how long a restore takes. Ask whether it costs extra. If the answer to that last one is a nervous laugh, walk away. Match the Plan to Your Traffic Shared hosting suits a small website or a brand-new blog. Your neighbors share the same resources, though, and one resource-hungry site can slow everybody down. If you sell products or expect sudden bursts of visitors, look at a VPS or a managed plan. Upgrade paths matter too, so find out how easy it is to switch tiers later. Always Have an Exit Strategy Can you move your files and database without a headache? Are there fees to leave? Keep your domain name registered in an account you control, separate from the host. That way, if things stop working out, you walk out carrying your belongings instead of arguing with a company that controls your property.