A webhosting tips guide for consumers.

1. Support


Do not join a host without testing out their support first. The best way to test out a hosts support is calling in. You'll be surprised how many hosts with an 800 number never answer their phones, or have long hold times. E-mailing a hosting company or submitting a ticket to their sales department is not the way to test a host! Many of the companies have incredible response times when contacting their sales department, very few have good times when contacting support. After all they don't make money by supporting you they only make money by selling you.


2. Scam Plans

If it sounds too good too be true it usually is! All hosts have the same basic limitations when it comes to server resources and specs. There is no magic server that has a never ending supply of ram and cpu. If a host ever claims to give unlimited space or bandwidth DO NOT JOIN THEM. The thing to remember is that the average web site uses about 50 Megs space and less then 1 gig bandwidth a month. So what hosting companies do is they lie! They make up scam plans with tons of space and 50 gigs bandwidth for around $8 bucks a month. It's a numbers game.... Only one or two of every 100 people that signup on the plan are going to use the 50 gigs bandwidth. So what do they do? They terminate the sites that use it saying "your site is using too many resources." They aren't lying about the resource usage it's the truth! Most people don't realize that bandwidth and space used have nothing to do with the server resources being used. Resource usage has to do with the amount of cpu and ram a site uses. If a site uses their 50 gigs bandwidth they aren't kicked for using their bandwidth they are kicked for using up most of the servers cpu and ram. Another thing to remember is that the cheaper the plan is, and the more space / bandwidth included the more sites per server the host will have to pack in to make their money back. So going by the above numbers which we would say is pretty accurate from our numbers... If a company hosted 200 sites per server and 2% of the server used the 50 gigs bandwidth that would equal 200 gigs bandwidth a month used on the server. Guess what If they don't kick those sites using it those 4 sites are going to be using more resources then all 196 sites on the server combined. So think about it would a hosting company boot 4 people paying $8 bucks a month in order to double the amount of sites they can hold on the server? You bet they would!If you think most hosts put less then 200 sites per server your living in a fantasy land. Most hosts put 1000's of sites per server. Making it all that much more important to kick the 2% or so that use what their plan comes with.

3. Never Pay Yearly

Another thing you'll notice is that most of these incredible scam plans force you to pay for a year up front to get the good pricing. Why would a hosting company care if you pay monthly or yearly? After all if you are happy with them you’re going to end up staying much longer then a year. Merchant fees aren't that much so why? It's because most have horrible support, slow servers, or even tons of downtime. If you were paying month to month you’re not going to stick around, but if you paid for a year up front what are you going to do. You won't get your money back so you have no choice but to stay with them. ONLY PAY MONTHLY!

4. Domain name tips

Do not join a host that includes a free domain name with their hosting package, and never purchase your domain name from a hosting provider, unless you are positive they will be putting your information in the whois. (We do most don't) If your information isn't in the whois they could blackmail you into staying with them. For all technical purposes whoever has their information in the whois is the owner. A domain owner doesn't go by who paid for it; it goes by whose information is on the whois
To check a whois on the domain go there and type "domainname.com" and click submit. Whoever’s address, email, and phone number shows up is the domain owner.

Do a whois on their domain name. Then look for the creation date of the domain name. If the domain name was created less then a year ago do not join that hosting company. They could be a great host, but considering more then 95% of new hosts go out of business within a year that really isn't something you should be taking a chance on. It's too easy to become a hosting company.

You could also test the speed of a host's network to your location by...

Clicking start > run > type in "command" enter, and then type "ping hostdomainname.com" wait for it to finish and look for the average ping. The lower the number the better, and chances are the faster your site will load if you should host with them. Any number around an 80 average would be good. Anything over 100 is very bad (unless you're living in another country from where the host is based.)

Don't believe anything you read on the hosting directories. They don't care who they recommend as they are all paid listings. The highest bidder gets the spot. What you should do to find reviews is search google using the company’s name. If they have been around a year you should find many real reviews of people who use their hosting. Another good place to check would be the companies forum, but don't always believe what you see. If someone writes something bad in the forum most hosts will delete their post and ban the user.

If a hosting company claims 100% uptime they are lying. All servers need to be rebooted every now and then for security and software updates. If they never reboot that means their server is insecure and they will eventually be hacked.

When a company guarantees an uptime that doesn't make it true. A host has as many uptimes as they have servers. It all depends on what server they put you on, and how well they manage it from the time your put on it.

Many hosting companies will give you a prorated refund based on the amount of downtime. So say you pay $10 for a month of hosting your site is down for 24 / hours. They will refund you for one day of downtime which ends up being about 33 cents. A guarantee is worthless! What is worth something is how they define the guarantee, and if they do in fact honor it.

Hope this helps some of you.

zricz, thanks very much for posting these tips. Unfortunately I found this after I had already broke a few of the rules and now have a host that is not performing.

I would like to ask you a question. For about 3 weeks now, Add Value Host has been having problems with IP addresses being blocked. Many people cannot access my site, the client panel is inaccessible and POP3 email cannot be sent. I spent days trying to figure out the problem with my ISP (even considered changing ISP's), bugs in my Windows program or my computer itself because AddValueHost never contacted their clients about this problem. After receiving a response from their help desk telling me everything had been fixed (and it had not), I visited AddValue's forum and saw many other clients having the same problems.

There is a post on their forum from a client who is offering help for this problem and he said he had researched it and it seemed that Roadrunner and Adelphia had blacklisted AddValue. AddValue support thanked him for the info and said they thought this was the problem and they had contacted Roadrunner.

Then another client posts that he had researched it and had been told clearly that AddValue was not being blacklisted at all, that AddValue is blocking incoming IP's to ISP's. He mentions that it might be a problem with NAC, AddValue's host. AddValue support again replies, thanks and now they think that's the problem. ??? They either have no clue how to figure it out themselves or they are just appeasing people.

They've stopped replying to help desk requests and forum posts. I am not upset with AddValue because they are having this problem, I am suspicious because of the unprofessional manner in which they've handled it. They are condescening, unresponsive and they still have never sent out a notice of the problems or updates of their efforts to fix the problem, even though they were able to manage sending out "Happy Fourth of July" notices to their "American" customers at one point. So you can take "eleventh's" word on another post that there ARE problems at this host.

I know nothing about the technical aspects of this, but I am curious about something you mentioned in your post. Please excuse me if I am talking rubbish.

You said some hosts may discontinue service with some users who are using a lot of resources. One IP address that is being blocked has 128 websites. I was not able to get all of the addresses, but the ones I did visit were all under construction or "coming soon". Add Value Host has a very inexpensive basic plan, so it's not like a lot of people are paying $500 a year and not using their sites. I'm sure there are a lot of newbies.

The clients posting on their forum must have functioning websites or they probably wouldn't have noticed the problems. I have on average 35,000 plus hits a month, and that is not including the 15,000 hits a month on my subdomain. I know nothing about what is considered large or small in terms of use of a website, but I'm sure my site uses more than your average "personal website". Is it possible for AddValue to purposely block the IP address to cut down on the resources used? I have a prepaid plan, so they can't "drop me". (And before you say it, I know you get what you pay for" but I agree with the poster who said whether it's $5 or $500, it's not right to stop performing the service people have paid you for.)

Thanks in advance for any answer you might to this.

Sometimes certain isp's are blocked from other countries. For example, If you are in the United States and try to access a Site based in China, The host may have elected to block isp's originating from the United States. Do a who is and check the location of your domain name. As far as blocking for excessive bw usage, the hits is only the beginning. What is the content of your site? Are there large files that people are downloading/accessing?

This is also a scam that some of the "lowlife" hosts use to scam you of your money. I would suggest sending them an e-mail (from a different e-mail account- do not use the one you used to register for their services, they know you already registered) as a prospective member of their services. State that you are interested, but you read their forum and have a few questions first.
Ask what the deal is with th isp blocking. They should respond rather quickly seeing as how you are a chance for them to make more money.
Post their answer here and I'll give my 2 cents on it.
Thanks

Thanks for your reply. I am not sure I'm giving you the info you are asking for, but from what I can tell AddValueHost is owned by someone in:
West Bloomfield
Michigan, AL MI 48324
US

AddValue's host is based out of New Jersey.

They mention on their websites that they have "offices" all over the world and I feel like the support people I have corresponded with are not Americans.

As far as my site, I put photos of every item I sell on my website, a small 300 width graphic that enlarges to a big 800X600 graphic. I have been warned twice (auto email) of going past my limit. I also have a few freebie huge screen saver graphics. But I am within my limit. And I have sold tons of items since I started this website 6 months ago, so I assume that my visitors are accessing these graphics before they buy the item.

Thanks again for your reply, and I will get back to you on the rest.

(If all is lost, can you suggest a good reliable host inexpensive host? )

Sorry, I just reread your post.

My domain whois says,
"IP Address: 66.246.52.197 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: United States - New Jersey - Parsippany - Net Access Corporation"

And as far as I can tell from customer feedback, some non US visitors are not having a problem with access. I've had orders from Portugal and Japan since this mess started. Many US visitors have written saying my site is down.

Thanks again.

A host that I use for one of my sites is Hostgator. They are a good, reliable, host with nice features and nice pricing. Their support is excellent. They have e-mail chat and telephone support.
They have a 99.9 % uptime gurantee. If they don't meet it, they'll refund you for the down time. They have tons of scripts installed and I would recommend using them.

http://hostgator.com

I think your tips were excellent, the most comprehensive advice I've seen yet. However, I checked out hostgator, and they seem to trip your 'too-good-to-be-true' alarm as far as price/storage/transfer. Are they the exception to the rule?

Yes they are awesome. I use them. The support is unbelievable. The longest I've had to wait when I emailed a question was an hour.
They have im support as well. They have a forum with lots of answers too.

In three months, I haven't been down a single time.

If you are down, email them and they will credit you for the time you were down.

zricz,

Are they using cPanel?

yes.

Here is a demo cpanel..

http://216.67.243.242:2082
username: demo
password : demo