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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758

    Cheap Hosts-Not always a good idea-Tutorial

    Ive been browsing the forums alot recently and i would like to put forward the following tutorial that may help some new members!

    Well first of all youve all heard the saying "if you pay peanuts you end up hiring monkeys" well thats sometimes the case with webhosting.

    Whilst we all love so called "bargains" many members post saying they are looking for the cheapest possible hosting company but please be aware and i hope you could take my following points into consideration.

    1."too good to be true" If you see a host advertising 20Gb of Space and 500Gb Bandwith for $4 a month you know theres a catch in most cases, Yes i put my hands up on say you can sometimes pick up "Genuine Bargains" but in alot of cases these sort of deals are not worth the trouble, for instance you may find a super cheap host, but take into consideration there uptime
    Guarentee and other features such as Support Systems. Use your common sense

    2. Also please do read your hosts terms of service many low cost hosts have you cornered in a 12month contract!

    3.Its always a good idea too pay monthly rather then yearly so if the host has major problems or anything of the sort youll know you havent layed out too much money!

    4.If your considering a reseller hosting plan make sure you go with a half decent company and make sure there server are located in good datacenters on good networks because you dont want to get on the bad side of your first few customers there your key to sucess!

    5.Make sure you check wheather or not your host provides a control panel unless your a advanced user you will find it very difficult to manage your hosting account.

    6.Make sure the host has a secure billing system before keying in your card details!

    7.Be aware of hosts which come across with a very strong approach meaning things like they lower there price straight away and be sure to avoid "if you sign up now ill give you 50% off)

    Some tips on helping you find your ideal host
    When you think youve found your host be sure to do the following checks before going with them.

    1.First of all do make sure there site is compleated if you are ordering via there URL.

    2.Dont host with comapnys who have a free Url Address (such as .tk .free domain) Believe me i have seen it advertised!

    3.Seach for reviews on your "to be host" www.google.com is your best friend when doing this, or another good idea is too seach WHT using the search feature, if you find bad user feedback be sure to take it into consideration especially if you see lots of bad reviews.

    4.I would certainly do a whos search on there domain name this can be done VIA www.whois.net type in your hosts domain name into the search box followed by the extension, when your get the details be sure to check the following details or certainly take them into consideration
    -See if the domain is registered with a email address and avoid hosts whos email address is host@hotmail.com or johnsmith@hotmail.com
    -See if the whois data looks "Geniune" for instace if the domain is registered to "John Smith" with a address of "20000000 White house road" you know is unlikely thats there real address!

    5.If the host provides a phone number check and see if it works.

    6.Send the host a random pre sales question and see what there responce time is like.

    If your unsure if you should go with a host or not post in the WHT forums, members will surely help you out

    I am hoping this tutorial may help some of you people out there.
    Thanks for reading
    PS:If you spot any mistakes or disagree with something please do PM me.
    Kind Regards
    Naz.A
    Last edited by The Napster; 01-28-2005 at 04:58 PM.

  2. #2
    thanks...this helpd i dont plan on owning a site yet...but in the near future i plan to and this is taught me some things i would have never thought about...*im currently working on websites owned by another person so i can learn the ropes...then ill start a site*

    *~LittleWebNooby~*

  3. #3
    Thanks for your comment. You have alot of wisdom in what you said

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Thanx for all the nice comments more tutorials to come!

  5. #5
    nice 1 ! i learned from it

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    276
    very nice job, and yes....google is great!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Thanks for the positive feedback

  8. #8
    good advice. thanks

  9. #9
    I can't agree with everything, though something is really wise.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Originally posted by Dimarick007
    I can't agree with everything, though something is really wise.
    Shame but too bad you got banned, so im not sure i can talk no advice from you

  11. #11
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    9
    hey naz you did a great job there, I am sure many people that want a hosting provider will need it... keep it up

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Why thanks
    im thinking of writing some more some time soon!

  13. #13
    Nice Job. I am planning to inter this industry with a reseller account, so going through the posts. Your one has helped me. Some of your tips I have noted down ( searching for feedbacks using google ).

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Oh Good, Good luck with your new reseller.
    Regards

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    271
    I went recently through the process of reshuffling all my hosts. All my websites (about a dozen) are under 10MB, and I used to pay $10-25 a month to host each of them. I now pay US$1-5 for each of them, and that seems more in line with the size of my sites. That will represent a yearly saving of nearly US$2,000.

    Because I went through that research recently myself, I can add the following comments:

    - Yes, using Google to research information about your projected host is a good idea. I used the search
    [host name] problems
    and it worked fine!

    - Of course, using these forums is another obvious idea. I researched hosts with many posts (not necessarily a thousand; but usually more than a hundred), or who had made interesting replies in a thread. Also, of course, I signed up with some hosts who had a good reputation in these forums.

    I intend to report here on all my new hosts (doteasy, phlint, atomic-hosting.net, hostcolor, hostsnare, perfecthost, sh3lls, connectyourweb and 3ix.org) in about 6 months. I am subscribing to an uptime monitoring service for all my sites. So far, my experience is that these smaller, cheaper hosts offer a better service than the larger ones I used in the past (Yahoo, Pair, Westhost).

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,758
    Certainly smaller hosts are able to give you more attention, Yahoo will have millions of customers and its all automated responces
    Good luck with finding a host

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    8
    thanks for good tut.

  18. #18
    Tutorial is really good and simple one. www.whois.sc can be a handy tool for whois information.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by The Napster
    6.Send the host a random pre sales question and see what there responce time is like.
    I think this the weak point in this tutorial guidelines is this one, since most -if not all- of cheap hosting companies realize that the first moments -meeting moments - with the customer is this one, pre-sale questions time.
    They'll response in no time, to make the customer think that their support is fast and so it's impressive.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    In a shop doorway.
    Posts
    10
    I liked most of this tutorial although I find some parts aren't always true.

  21. #21
    Very usefull, keep it coming. And thankyou for writting these for all of us newbies...

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Posts
    949
    I have some advice-

    1). Make sure the host is a legal business entity (this gives you some recourse if you get ripped off)

    2). The host should list their mailing address on their web site, like any other legitimate business.

    3). Choose a host that offers a money back guarantee of some kind.

    4). Test the support response - send an email or call the phone # and make sure you get a reasonable response.
    Last edited by anon-e-mouse; 03-13-2006 at 08:00 AM.

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,357
    Good stuff. I'm actually make a presale Q txt file with questions to ask the webhost about their company.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    16
    Good tut.

    It's also sometimes useful to have a look at how long a company has been in business (you can take a look at their WhoIs info to see when their domain was registered).

    You can't heavily base your choice on this (all companies have to start somewhere) but if you're feeling a little iffy about a company and they've only just started business then you may want to be a little bit cautious, because they might not be around long enough to provide the services they promise.
    Last edited by anon-e-mouse; 03-13-2006 at 08:00 AM.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Nottingham
    Posts
    20
    Thanks for this good tut and info.
    Reliable Web hosting http://web-toast.co.uk

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