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  1. #1

    Find a web host for under 20 bucks

    Hey everyone I run a blog and I recently wrote a tutorial on finding a cheap web host. I've used WHT to find a couple of no-frills hosts and I just wanted to share how I found them.

    <<snipped>>

    Here's the full tutorial:

    SO YOU’VE BOUGHT YOUR DOMAIN NAME AND YOU’RE NOW LOOKING FOR A WEB HOST.

    You’ve already spent $10 on your domain and don’t wanna spend much more for a host.
    Before I get started, if you’re reading this guide, give yourself a pat on the back for being smart and not buying a hosting package with your domain name registrar. Even if it’s included free, a domain name tied to your host is never a good idea. It makes migration much more difficult, and should the host go down, they might just take your domain with you.

    SHARED VS. DEDICATED HOSTING

    For under $20, your hosting package will be shared hosting. This basically means that server resources are shared with a pool of other websites. Now you might be thinking: won’t that really slow down the server and make my website run slow?. The answer is yes and no. It all depends on the host you pick. Certain hosts are very good at managing their servers while others aren’t. Well managed hosts will almost never have slowdown issues, while poorly managed hosts will have slowdowns and downtime often. It’s purely based on reputation. Don’t like this idea of sharing resources? Dedicated hosting, where you have your own dedicated server resource, is more reliable, gives you more, but of course it is much more expensive.

    WEBHOSTINGTALK

    Since your budget is under $20, skip Google and go straight to WebHostingTalk. It’s a forum where people talk about web hosting, and where hosting companies advertise. There’s going to be a lot to choose from. Some are older, more recognizable hosts, while some are brand new. Actually, a lot of them are brand new, and might not last. Here’s how to pick a good one:

    SKIP RIGHT OVER THE FREE HOSTS

    You’re going to see a forum section called “Free Hosting Offers”. I can’t stress this enough, but avoid it at all costs. I made that mistake before and I will never go back to free hosting again.
    Think about shared hosting. It’s true that often times, there are a lot of people in one pool of resources, and that causes slowdowns. If that’s the case, then any non-free hosting company will pay a little more and upgrade their servers to deal with the amount of clients they have using their profits.
    Now, think about that, multiplied by 10. Server traffic is much heavier and there’s no revenue coming in to pay. The result is extremely slow servers, terrible support, and forced ads on your site to help pay for some of their costs. The speeds are a real pain to develop on. Installing WordPress and its plugins would not be fun at all, and your site might be down for days at a time. This is not something you want for your blog, small business or even personal website.
    It’s truly a case of “you get what you pay for”. Pay the extra few and get reliable service.

    HOW REPUTABLE IS THE HOST?

    On the WebHostingTalk forums under shared hosting, there are a few pinned hosts that advertise and then there are hundreds of others. A lot of them are very new, some are less than a month old! These ones are also much, much cheaper, so you might be able to find a great hosting package for as little as $12! For instance JustAStudent and some other sites are currently hosted on InodeHosting. I’ve got 3 sites on there and it costs $12 a year. No problems to report, rock solid.
    How did I find them? It was through the hundreds of non-sticky WHT forum posts. What you want to do is look at the host’s site. If it looks pretty good (lack spelling errors, decent design), then check the uptime. Always go for above 99%. You can check on WebHostingStuff reviews of the host, uptime, and how long they’ve been active. Incredibly useful.
    I wouldn’t go with a web host that’s less than a year or two old. It’s easy to start a shared hosting company and even easier to close one. New ones might become discouraged and close up shop in a matter of weeks, so be careful.

    KNOW YOUR STORAGE AND BANDWIDTH REQUIREMENTS

    If you’re running a blog, a small business site, or a personal site, you don’t need a lot of room. You can easily get away with 1GB per site. Most hosts will offer more. If you’re hosting video (not sure why you would be, there’s YouTube for that), you’ll probably need more.
    Now bandwidth is a little tricky, but I’m going to give a calculation that should work for you. You can expect an image heavy site homepage (the norm) to be anywhere from 2-5MB nowadays. A small business site or blog will be around 1MB. Subpages might be smaller, so around 0.51MB. Assume your average user will look at three pages (you can use a number that’s higher or lower, it’s up to you). Now, multiply by how many visitors you think you’ll have in a month. Think carefully when coming up with this number (consider target audience, location, etc.). Overshooting is always better than undershooting. Multiply by 1.5. This is the amount of monthly bandwidth you’ll want for your site.

    FEATURES YOU NEED

    This varies from user to user, but I’m writing this for the small business owner / blogger who isn’t as technically savvy. Remember that everyone has their own special requirements and hosting is NOT one size fits all.

    ADD-ON DOMAINS & SUBDOMAINS

    Add-on domains allow you to use the space and bandwidth for more than one site. Useful if you run multiple sites, or if you want to split the hosting with someone else. You might even get a better package and host if you split. If you’re only running one site, forget it.
    Subdomains are subdirectories of your main domain, say subdomain.maindomain.com. It’s useful if you want to test something on your site. Almost every web host includes unlimited subdomains nowadays.

    NO OVERSELLING

    This means the host doesn’t sell to more users than it can handle. It’s part of managing traffic. It ensures your site will have good speeds because an adequate amount of resources will always be available for you. Some hosts might not advertise this, you should contact them if they don’t.

    FREQUENT BACKUPS

    If a storm hits the data center where your site is hosted, if your host offers backups then you’re fine. If it doesn’t, you’re out of luck.

    CPANEL WITH SOFTACULOUS OR SOME OTHER ONE CLICK INSTALLER

    Makes your life a lot easier. Add subdomains, addon domains, transfer files, one-click install WordPress without headaches. Plus, there are lots of guides out there for CPanel on the internet.

    MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

    Follow my guide but still managed to pick a bad host? You probably say a $5 host and compromised some of my advise. Your money back guarantee will come in handy.
    Everything else, like unlimited FTP accounts, email, and Apache will be standard.
    Last edited by Postbox; 07-26-2014 at 11:33 PM. Reason: Forum guidelines

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,136
    Nice one, may I ask what you'd class a "new host" as?

    Thanks!
    Sapatana.eu ILoveBilling
    120Gbps DDoS Protection on Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, XEN Windows and Linux VPS, Domains, SSL Certificates
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  3. #3
    Basically I define it as one of those hosts that show up below the sticky posts in the Web Hosting Offers forum. You know, ones that will offer $10 yearly hosting and have a thread that was started that same day. It's tough to go through them all and decide which ones are legitimate or not.

    I'd set a minimum time at around 2 years.

    Note to <2 year old web hosts: Start giving a select number of people a free hosting package. Give them excellent service and build your portfolio. This is what gives trust to people who are looking for a host.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    49
    Really nice tutorial. Thanks for that

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    111
    Nice post! This is great info and I'm sure will benefit folks new to web hosting looking for a quality host.
    Rescuing Websites from Bad Hosts since 2001
    Don't let your website get abducted!

    Krellen.com - Web hosting you can count on.

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