Here are some things to watch out for when selecting a web host.
Some are tricks, some just business practices of the industry or
minor problems. You can usually find them by carefully reading
host's terms of use and acceptable use policies.
None of these concerns are true for our webhosting. If you find
that one is, let us know and you are welcome to your webhosting
money to be refunded -- and you can continue to use our webhosting
to your next renewal date for free!
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"Unlimited" space, transfer, etc. This is usually just
an advertising gimmick. Almost all hosts that have "unlimited"
plans, specify in their Acceptable Use Policies that no site
can use an "excessive" amount of resources. If you use
too much disk space, bandwidth, or CPU time, these "unlimited"
hosts will ask you to upgrade or leave. We recommend against
using "unlimited" hosts so you know exactly what you're getting.
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Daily transfer limits. Very few hosts have such limits,
but you should be aware that you can't just multiply by 30 to
get the monthly transfer limit because transfer usage is uneven.
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Setup fees. Few hosts hide the fact that there is a setup
fee until you get to the signup page.
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Limits on file size. Some hosts limit maximum sizes of
files (not to the total space used for all files, but the maximum
size of a single file). This can prevent customers from
putting files for download or having big graphics.
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Not allowing downloads. Some hosts won't let you use
a large percentage of your available transfer for file downloads.
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FTP transfer limit. Few hosts have limits on FTP use.
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Bad uptime guarantees. These guarantees usually have
multiple qualifications, such as making only unannounced uptime
count, often making them useless.
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Limit on database size that is only listed in the terms of
use.
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Very high extra space and additional transfer costs.
It is normal for extra space and transfer to cost more than
they do for the initial account, but these additional costs
can often be way too high.
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No emergency phone number.
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Severe limits on resource use. All hosts impose some
CPU limits on shared plans but some hosts forbid all resource
intensive scripts, such as message boards.
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Slow setup. Many hosts are not fully automated (sometimes
to prevent fraud) and the setup can take a couple business days.
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No support on weekends.
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High domain name prices. We don't recommend using hosts
for domain name registration because many hosts' prices are
not very competitive.
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No control panel. This may be OK for experienced webmasters
but many new users need a control panel.
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No POP access to emails. Some hosts only offer Web access
to site's email accounts.
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Limit on monthly site hits. Few hosts do that in addition
to transfer limits.
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Long commitment to the host required.
