Finding the right host for you

Sooner or later everyone faces the task of finding a good web host. We have compiled a short guide that equips you with the most important things you should look for when evaluating a web hosting company.

The Myth of Unlimited Bandwidth
There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. The hosting provider has to pay for its internet connection and prices his packages accordingly. The practice of overselling (assuming that costumers won’t use up their alloted resources and accordingly offering larger, more powerful hosting packages) is very common in the hosting industry and can prove fatal to smaller hosting operations. For the sake of clarity, let us use an example. Hosting company A has one server and 10 clients on it with a package that offers “Unlimited Bandwidth” - As long as each of the clients is using less than 10% of the available resources on average things will operate smoothly. But as soon as one of the customers experiences a traffic explosion, the availability of resources is diminishing. Now assume that a few of the clients start seeing dramatic increases in traffic - The whole venture starts to turn unprofitable and the hosting company is likely to go bankrupt if it were to continue offering these offerings to its clients.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes at a price. So if you are being offered incredible amounts at bargain prices you should become very cautious as this occasion may cost you dearly at a later point of time. They are usually what the name implies: Incredible.

Evaluation of the Web Hosting Company
Another thing that is of the utmost importance is to check the company before placing an order. You do that by entering the host name into the search engine of your choice. In most cases you will find a plethora of search results that provide you with ratings and reviews by people that have/had experiences with the company. Evaluate and judge carefully. By doing so you can avoid lots of hassles as customers with bad experiences have a tendency to warn potential customers from bad hosts by letting off steam on sites that feature web hosting reviews.

The Importance of Support
Support is yet another important issue. How savvy is the tech staff? What is the availability of support? Where is the support located? Is there someone able to help you in case your website goes offline on the 24th of December? These are some of the question that come to mind when thinking of tech support. You might want to test the quality of support before placing an order by testing the time it takes them to reply to your requests. In addition, feel free to ask technical questions as well as inquire whether telephone support is available. Our experience has shown that many minor issues are being solved easier over the phone rather than email.

Summarizing, we believe that it all comes down to your needs. In case you are just hosting a site that features photos of your pets, uptime is not as crucial as if you were to operate an ecommerce site. By carefully answering the questions of how much you are willing to spend, how much reliability you need and the features that are crucial to you, the quest for finding a web host will be a successful one.

Hostgator Review

To tell the truth I had been looking for more than 2 weeks for a hosting company which would provide me uptime and a lot of bandwidth for a cheap price. I firstly tried 2 of my friends hosts but they were slow and that wasn’t what I was looking for. I had learnt from a friend that I should stay away from big companies as they are overselling. I was going to open a new business and I really needed a perfect hosting which would give me 100 % uptime and a lot of space and bandwidth for a cheap price
I then gave a try to HostGator which so far is one of the best alternatives I have ever found.

I created an account with them and my hosting was up within 12 minutes. Actually I had a problem with my Wordpress which was not related to my Hosting and I asked their Live support and they helped me out even if it was not their fault or anything related with their hosting

Many customers say that HostGator and other big companies are overselling but so far I have never had any single problem with them and among every other thing , they are really cheap (comparing to the quality they are offering and their services)

To tell the truth HostGator so far has offered me a great support for all my problems and they have solved them within an hour.

What I appreciate most at HostGator is the perfect live support and the uptime. Whenever you have any problem (even if its not related to hosting ) you can kindly ask them.

Another great offer that HostGator is offering are the different coupons. You can use those coupons and the price will be halved. Make sure you find a working coupon when (or if) you decide to sign up with HostGator, there are some below to help you save money.

I have had a great uptime since my hosting was created (I can say I never had a downtime) so I hope this will continue for a while.

Trust me if you are looking for a good hosting where you can host all your businesses then HostGator is the right choice.
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Awardspace review

Awardspace is a very popular host for both paying people and those who appreciate free hosting. Though a bit more technical in comparison to other hosting websites, as long as you don’t mind experimenting with the control panel, you should get used to its interface rather quickly. Awardspace is also one of few hosts of it’s time that keep to their word, offering all they say they are going to offer, no questions asked.

My personal experience with Awardspace has been an enjoyable one. I’ve had four sites hosted there for two years now just on one account, with hardly any problems at all. One of the best features of this host has to be the Customer Service. You actually get an answer back to a problem within 24 hours. Another good feature of this site is that it’s been up for a few good years now, and shows no signs of going down like many hosts before them. It’s obvious to see that they know how to manage their money and run an acceptable web business.

The only problems I’ve ever encountered with Awardspace was the inability to log onto my account a few times. My sites remained up and running, but I couldn’t get into the control panel to edit them. I ended up looking to Support for answers, which they were quick to supply. The problem as a whole only lasted for about a day or two before it was fixed. Also, Awardspace’s control panel can be rather odd. It works perfectly fine, but you need to go through at least 3 separate sections before you can get to the area where you can edit your website. It’s terribly confusing for a beginner at website making in general, so I recommend having at least a bit of experience before trying this host.

Otherwise, I really like Awardspace and all it has to offer. They give you 200 MB Disk Space and 5 GB for a free plan, but the paid hosting is what really makes this company shine. For only $4.99 a month, you can receive 10 GB Disk Space and 100 GB Disk Space. If you need even more, the highest plan at $9.99 a month would give you 30 GB Disk Space and 300 GB Bandwidth. Pricing is very reasonable, and the best part is that if you pay for one of these plans, they put you on an extremely fast server with unlimited subdomains, plenty of MySQL Databases, and every other possible quality you might enjoy in a host.

Awardspace is a winner in my opinion. You can give them a try simply with the free hosting alone, and if you enjoy their service, I definitely recommend upgrading your account to a paid plan. You won’t be disappointed with the cheap prices, the great support, or the different features they add to make your stay with them memorable.
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Hosted at awardspace? Had previous experiences of the company? Post a comment on your experiences below!

Affordable Shared Hosting - What to Look For.

You might have seen numerous web hosting companies advertising about their affordable web site hosting plans. And again you might have come across discussions in forums about the same. What exactly constitutes an affordable web site hosting plan? This article explains, some of the features that make a hosting plan affordable. Just like with all things in life, if things are cheap they are so because of a reason. This fact has to be kept in mind when buying cheap hosting plans.

The first factor that makes a web hosting plan affordable is the price. Usually, one can expect decent webhosting for a price range below $10 a month. Many good hosts like Hostgator have their basic plans priced below $10 a month. However, some hosts provide web hosting for even less. Choosing these web hosting plans is not a good option. If you are really serious about creating a long lasting profitable website, $10 a month is a reasonable amount that you may have to invest.

The next factor is the ability to host multiple web sites in the same account. Most of the web hosts offer this feature. However, certain web hosts have restrictions on the number of websites that can be hosted. There are two ways of hosting more sites. One is to add the new domain as an add-on domain. This feature has many disadvantages like the lack of a separate control panel. The other way is to create a separate new account for the new domain. This feature creates a separate control panel for the new domain. Only few web hosts support the second feature.

Other factors that are characteristic of an affordable web site hosting plan are support for unlimited databases and scripting languages like PHP, python, etc. Usually, the number of databases used is very low. For example, an ordinary site may need 3 MySQL databases, one each for the site, forum and the blog. However, support for unlimited databases is an added advantage. You never know when you may need more. Last but not the least, an affordable web site hosting plan should have the guarantee of a good uptime. This is the most important factor.

Tags: webhosting, web hosting, affordable hosting, cheap hosting

The Cheap Affordable Web Hosting Trap

Go to your favorite search engine and search for keywords like "cheap affordable web hosting" and you will find a million websites claiming to provide your the best webhosting services. One website claims large amounts of bandwidth and yet, better still claim unlimited bandwidth. But, in reality but does dead cheap affordable web hosting exist? Usually, it doesn’t. You only get what you pay for: Webhosting is not an exception to this general rule that governs our lives.

A web hosting company usually owns many servers which are usually located in a place where the environmental factors are kept under tight control. This is a costly process. Server equipment is costly, bandwidth is costly and so are the service staff. So, can a webhost offer 1000GB of disk space and unlimited bandwidth for a few dollars a month? In reality it cannot. However, you will see pages after pages full of fictional figures and may be enticed to believe them.

Most of the websites offering web hosting are resellers. These websites buy hosting packages from bigger hosts and resell them at very cheap prices. Typically, a reseller account with 10GB disk space and 100GB transfer costs about $30 a month. So how can the website claim 100GB disk space? The answer is simple-they are lying! This is simply a marketing gimmick. They are aware that it is impossible to use even a fraction of the resources mentioned without overloading the server and this is a good pretext for them to suspend your account.

Before choosing a webhost, you should read the terms of service (TOS). These so called dead cheap web hosts will clearly mention it in their TOS that your account will be suspended if you use too many system resources. If your account is suspended, it will mean a lot of down time for your site(s). For this reason, it is always a good decision to keep away from these so called cheap affordable web hosting companies and stick with good ones even if they cost a couple of dollars more.

Tags: webhosting, hosting, website, cheap hosting