Web Hosting Coupons

So, you are ready and looking for some tips to decide between free web host or paid web host. I will focus on some facts, so you can decide for yourself.

Let’s have a look at some advantages and disadvantages of these solutions.

Free web hosting:

1. It’s for free and you don’t need to pay for the domain name.
2. Your URL will be something like username.freehosting.com or freehosting.com/username. As I noticed above, the advantage is that you don’t need to pay for domain. But note that if you move your website to another provider in the future you can loose some or all your traffic (there are some solutions how to solve this problem but it is not the point of this article).
3. Your provider will probably include ads to your pages - usually 1 or 2 banners, sometimes popup windows. If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn’t allow it.
4. Free hosts usually allow lower bandwith then paid hosts and a lot of them don’t offer features like PHP and MySQL.
5. A lot of free hosts change their Terms and conditions during some time. If your free host offers hosting wihtout ads now, don’t be surprised when banner or popup appears on your site in the future.
6. Sometimes free hosts cancel their free service and offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choises - pay them or loose your website.

Paid web hosting:

1. You can host your own domain. i.e yourdomain.com If you decide to change the web hosting provider in the future, you easily transfer the domain to the new provider and don’t loose your traffic.
2. Most paid hosts offer 24/7 support via email or live chat and some of them provide toll-free phone support.
3. You can expect better uptime then on free host. Some paid hosts offer 99.9% uptime guarantee.
4. Paid hosts usually offer enough disk space and bandwith (usually unlimited space and unlimited bandwith). They offer features like PHP and MySQL.
5. some Paid hosting offers unlimted domain. That means you can host all your sites in one account for one payment.

Before you make the decision if choose free or paid host, you should answer this question: How big ambitions do I have with my website? If you are starting small personal page for your friends consist of a few *.html files then free host will be sufficient. In case you plan to run serious business website, blog, need PHP, database and don’t want ads on the site I recommend to look for quality paid host.

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I have been to few forums and web hosting discussion board and there are a few common threads and questions that you tend to see on a daily basis.

First is “Please help me to select a good web host.
second is, “Never use xyz host for xyz reason”
third is, “xyz host is very bad, my site is always down” One of my reader asked me on email that, provide some tips to choose good web host and I have decided to share some tips that I have used through trial and error since I purchased web hosting for the first time over 3 years ago. These tips are really handy. A few tips and a little research can save you hours of headaches.

1. Determine your needs. Space, bandwidth and budget.

a) Space – Cover your needs and allow for expansion if needed.
b) Bandwidth- Same as above.
c) Budget – Set a realistic budget for yourself. How much are you willing to spend? Lowest price too highest. Being a little flexible on your price will give more hosting choices.

2. Follow some basic guidelines for even considering a hosting provider.

a) Does the host have phone number? At the very least a web host should provide you with a contact phone number. This doesn’t have to be a 24-hour a day number but your future host should be available during normal business hours in their respective time zone. A toll free shows a willingness to provide convenience for their customers.
b) Do they provide at least 24/7 Support Desk? Support is important, this is a must. You should have access to support 24 hours a day. Test the support desk. Choose anytime of the day or night and contact the support desk to test response times, ask any questions you might have. A response time under an hour is good; less than thirty minutes is considered excellent.
c) Take a good look at their web site. This sometimes can be over looked but I believe this says something very important about the hosting company. If they care about how they present themselves to the public, they are more apt to care about other things like service and maintaining a high reputation.
d) The hosting company should provide you with an Acceptable Use Policy, Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy as well. It is in your best interest that you read these policies and understand them before you pay for services.
e) Do they have an Uptime Guarantee? We won’t set a number on this but a hosting provider should be willing to disclose what their commitment to service is. A professional company will have this included in their Terms of Service.
f) Do they provide a Money Back Guarantee? Again, this should listed in their Terms of Service. g) Payment Options – A host should provide their customers with more than one payment option. Credit cards and other payment option such as PayPal or something comparable.

3. Make a list of at least four to five possible hosting providers that fit your needs from the guidelines above and do some research.

a) Search forums, blogs and others to see what type of information you can find on the host.

b) Compare features and price of the hosts on your list.
c) Contact the host either by phone, email or support desk and ask any questions you might have.
d) Check Testimonials – If the host has a list of testimonials if possible send an email to one of those customers and ask for their feedback on the host. Most people are happy to give a recommendation. This can also help determine if the testimonial real or a fabrication.
e) Finally you might want to consider doing a ping test if you can, check some customers web sites if listed, see how fast they load.
f) Make your choice, sign up and good luck.

There are so many hosting companies out there today, and the choices are close to endless. These guidelines are not fool proof in anyway but if you follow them you will have a better chance finding a host that you can trust in delivering quality service and save you from moving from host to host. In 3 years of buying web hosting and dedicated servers I have never once had a provider suddenly disappear on me in the middle of the night. Good luck and good hunting. If you have any question you can email me.. I will surely help you to choose web hosting service.

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Is cheap web hosting, really a cheap deal?

Everyone today is looking for cheap web hosting.
At the same time you see hosting providers giving the world for $5.
So why not go with the cheapest hosting provider offering the most resources?

1. How much does it cost?
Web hosting providers also have to pay for bandwidth and equipment.
Servers aren’t cheap, ranging from just shy of $1,000 all the way to $20,000 for the cream of the crop.
Even those $20,000 have a space limit, especially since hard drives are tough to find over 1TB in size.
Bandwidth isn’t free as well, and a single server can only put out about 30,000GB per month on a standard 100 mbit network connection.
So lets say a host sells 100GB of disk space and 1000GB of bandwidth on each hosting plan.
Theoretically the host should only offer 30 plans on a single server, and at $5 a piece it roughly comes out to $150/mo.
So how can a host cover server and bandwidth costs and keep staff available 24/7 for support?

2. The Magic of Overselling
To be able to afford the costs and still make a profit hosts start overselling.
Overselling is basically selling more than what you can provide.
In this case instead of putting 30 customers on a server, they put 300 customers.
This is done based on the assumption that no user will use all of their allotted space and bandwidth.

Does it work?
Absolutely, even the electric company does it, based on the assumption that everyone won’t turn all their electronics on at once.
This can only be taken to a certain extent before it starts becoming a problem, and the server starts getting overloaded.

So what happens if everyone actually used all their bandwidth and disk space?

Nothing, because the Terms of Service and Acceptable Usage Policy don’t allow it.
If you read these two pieces you will find that every host has a clause that mentions CPU and Memory Usage.
You will most likely hit these limits far before you hit the space and bandwidth limits.

3. Get what you for!

Unfortunately when it comes to web hosting, you truly get what you pay for.
By throwing in an extra few dollars a month you will receive a higher quality hosting experience.
Your sites will load faster, and essentially you’ll have happy browsers.
This will also allow the host to purchase more expensive, and faster hardware, and hire knowledgeable professionals.
It all comes back to you.

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