Where to find the best web hosting is the question of the century and it stands at the very foundation of your online marketing efforts. The process of making this selection is notoriously daunting for the inexperienced and this can lead to confusion in an already complex market place. The truth is you may be spoiled by options and this can lead to some bad decisions.

The competition among web hosting companies is especially severe and the marketing tactics incorporated by a web hosting company can add to the confusion. Many times a hosting company will make outlandish promises, claims they can’t really support or even downright lies just to attract an unassuming customer.

In this cutthroat market, you will need the guidance of a seasoned professional to come out on top with the services that will bring you to riches.

Tips for Choosing Proper Web Host

Following are some of the best insights and expert data you will need to make a well-informed decision when deciding on who should host a website for your business. Here you will find an overview of the features that you will likely need the most and the details that will require a bit more attention when making this especially crucial decision.

Bear in mind this is just a basic overview of some of the more common tactics used by hosting companies, and you will need to practice your due diligence to truly define the reliability of a web host you have in mind for you online needs.

Traffic Speed and Capacity

You will find that every web host you research suddenly has the very best solutions for unlimited bandwidth, massive traffic capacity and a host of other benefits that would be superfluous to mention here. The problem is that some of these service providers will actually be telling the truth. So, how will you tell the reliable hosts from the swindlers? Here are some clues.

In many cases you will be offered a truly impressive volume of traffic, but the transfer speed may not actually be up to par with your needs. At the beginning this may seem like a very small issue and you may not even notice the problem. But, if you are hoping to expand your service radius then you will soon find that this arrangement is less than ideal.

Then there will be other web hosts that offer you an impressive amount of traffic speed but with some severe limitations for capacity. Then there will be others still who can offer unlimited traffic and high capacity, but there will only be a set number of users who can access your site each month.

The important takeaway is that you will need to examine the details of the agreements you are making and especially the finer points of traffic speed.

Extra Fees

Surprise, surprise! You may think that the costs you find on the original agreement are steep, but just wait until you have the extra fees and hidden costs added to the tally. The fact is that all of these companies will have an additional set of features and services available for a price. But, some of the less scrupulous companies are not quite as up-front about these fees as they ought to be and this can be especially frustrating when you find they have selected additional services and fees that you may not need, or even want.

Uptime Percentage

Uptime is the only time that matters. Why? Because the uptime is the time your website will be online and functioning. Most websites will provide a guaranteed amount of time when their web site will be operational, but unfortunately not all web hosts actually live up to their promises. Most will not!

You will also find websites that offer a rather inaccurate measurement for their uptimes. For example, they may say they count the uptime of the some of the home pages of their web hosts site. But, these can be biased and the information sourced from their best performing websites. This can be confusing because some of the sites that are not operating well will not be mentioned.

It’s a clever tactic, but can leave a client in the lurch when they really need to be online and making profits.

Yearly Renewal Prices

This is an especially underhanded trick and very popular and profitable for the unscrupulous. You will be offered a variety of special features, some of them especially useful, at a bargain price when signing up for the web host’s services. Of course, when it comes time to renew the contract you will suddenly be charged a large bill to continue with these services many of which you may have thought were free.

This rule generally applies to the purchase of domain names. Your provider will offer you the use of the domain name completely free for a full year. But, when it comes time to pay for the domain name that your company has gotten used to using, you will be hit with a bill to continue with the same name. Don’t make the mistake of not seeing this charge coming. The importance of checking that user agreement with a fine-toothed comb before making any agreements cannot be overemphasized.

Clients per Server

For a better price, you can purchase a plan that allows you to share hosting with other users limiting your use to a section of the server. The obvious problem is getting stuck with a bad neighbor whose online operations impact your own.

To avoid such an issue, many web hosts promise to restrict the number of other users on your service to a small number, for example within 100 or up to 150. Of course, despite their promises, not all web hosts will live up to the promises they are providing.

You may be wondering to yourself how on earth this information will help you making a choice between one shared hosting option or another. The answer? It really doesn’t help you at all. You can rest assured that anyone offering this option will be providing you with a faulty and somewhat unfair option. Furthermore, if they are going to be cheating you in this very large point of web hosting, there is little doubt that they will be cheating you in other areas as well. How to avoid this, know your web host provider and their business better than you know your own company. If it sounds tricky, this is exactly the point.

Bottom line, if you don’t trust your web service to 100% upfront and fair in their dealings, you can expect to have a rough and costly relationship with their company.

Now that you know what type of dirty tricks are commonly used in the webhosting racket, you have a better chance of escaping these extra costs and sneaky tricks. Of course, the crafty web hosting companies are quite adept at coming up with new and improved plans to make a dishonest profit.

The best way to avoid any misfortune in this market is with plenty of research and investigation. Those truly reliable companies that are offering the services you need will be hard to find, but with proper research and a close examination of the agreements you make with them, you will be rewarded with the service you need.