Editorial Articles

There are many myths and misunderstandings about web hosting that make finding the right provider difficult. Businesses will have a number of questions, such as - how do you know you’re getting good service? And what should you do if you suspect you’re not?

These businesses can end up paying too much for the wrong type of hosting. Here are the basics – what you need to know about hosting.

What goes on behind closed doors?
Many hosting providers choose not to notify customers when they experience downtime. This means your website could be out of action and you wouldn’t even know. For e-commerce businesses or perhaps for a company in the midst of a big marketing campaign, this isn’t just an inconvenience, it can damage profits. Finding out revenue has dipped due to a problem with your site is never an easy thing to swallow – nor should it be.

To make sure this can’t happen, have your hosting provider report regularly on uptime. Don’t take the ‘uptime guarantee’ as gospel. Your provider should also prove its SLA (Service Level Agreement) and send you regular reports, rather than granting credits retrospectively for downtime. It’s also worth noting that large chunks of downtime can be excluded from credits under the guise of ‘trouble-shooting’. Before you sign-up to a provider, agree how uptime will be proved, what the process is, and how they define ‘downtime’. 

Know exactly what you’re paying for
Some hosting providers offer an all-in fee for set-up, hardware, operating system, support and bandwidth. This might seem like a hassle-free option but the problem with these deals is you can’t see exactly where your money is going. In reality, you could end up paying for things you don’t need. The best way to ensure you’re not taken for a ride is to ask for a breakdown of services and individual quotes for support, bandwidth, additional hardware etc. It’s the only way to know what’s being delivered, what isn’t, and what is surplus to requirements.

Always ask about pricing for over-usage. What happens if you exceed your allotted monthly bandwidth or your back-up allowance? And how much more will it cost to add an extra GB of RAM or an extra hard drive? Over-usage pricing can result in a sharp shock to your monthly budget. Ask for the extra cost of things like memory, bandwidth and back-up to be quoted separately, as they could come back to bite you.

Look closer – do your own research
In some cases, a hosting provider will actually have a host itself. This means you may be paying a margin when you could be getting a better SLA and a better price by going direct. The closer you are to the host, the swifter the fault resolution so it pays to do a bit of research.
One of the best tools to discover your real host is the anti-phishing toolbar from Netcraft: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/ – this allows you to see other sites your provider hosts. If you don’t want to ask your provider for a reference, but you do want to find and contact some of its customers, this is the perfect way to do it.

When it comes to references, don’t just accept the carefully edited ‘case studies’ the hosting provider offers you. A good way of testing them is the Alphabet Test - choose any letter of the alphabet and ask for three references beginning with that letter. If they find this difficult you know they don’t have the high level of references they claimed.

Understand your contract, and your exit options
Long-term contracts often come with discounts and therefore sound like a great deal. But if the provider isn’t delivering, you’re stuck with poor service or forced to pay a hefty exit fee. Instead, sign a month-to-month contract. You may pay a little more, but you will have the flexibility to leave or alter your hosting agreement at any point which will make life easier in the long-run.
If you do end up with a bad provider, it’s often worth paying the exit fee to switch to a month-to-month contract. Moving hosting provider is not hard or difficult, there are many digital agencies that can handle migration projects without difficulty, so don’t be put off about changing things and never resign yourself to bad service.

To make your site a success, decide what you need your site to deliver, do some independent research and don’t be thrown by the jargon. A good hosting company will be able to explain everything you need to know and will help you lay the groundwork for a successful website.