Four simple steps to testing the reliability of your potential web host.

1. Always test a host's support before joining them!

The first thing you are going to want to do is pick up the phone and call their 800 number, If they don't have one I would recommend staying clear. Many companies have long hold times or maybe it just goes to a message saying they are not utilizing this support system or leave a message and they will return your call. After verifying their phone support, contact their support department via email, not their sales department. Most companies will respond very quickly to pre-sales questions but very few companies will have a quick response time in their support department as it is usually understaffed.

2. The truth to why many hosting plans are scams.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. All hosting companies have the same basic limitations as far as resources go. A company offering unlimited space or bandwidth has a zero chance of being able to deliver on the goods. Frankly, there is no such thing as unlimited when talking about hard drive space or bandwidth. A company simply can not provide unlimited access to a limited resource.

The fact is, the average web site only uses 50 megabytes of space and less than 1 gigabyte of bandwidth a month and many companies will wrongly assume they can get away with what is called overselling. They will offer 60 gigs of bandwidth for under $10 a month to attract as many customers as possible. To make their money back from underselling their product they cram 1000's of websites on one server. They assume their customer's websites will only require the resources of the average web site, if a particular website exceeds this, they will remove the account stating the website is abusing the system's resources. Truthfully, the website is probably using too much of their resources as they have 1000's of other sites on the same server, even though the website is well with in the unlimited space or bandwidth they claimed to offer.

3. It is not recommended to purchase your domain name from your hosting provider

Do not join a host that includes a free domain name with their hosting package, and avoid purchasing your domain name from a hosting provider, unless you are positive they will be putting your information in the whois. (We do most don't) If your information isn't in the whois they could blackmail you into staying with them. For all technical purposes whoever has their information in the whois is the owner. A domain owner doesn't go by who paid for it; it goes by whose information is on the whois. To check a whois on the domain go there and type "domainname.com" and click submit. Whoever’s address, email, and phone number shows up is the domain owner. We recommend purchasing a domain from www.godaddy.com after you purchase the name all you would do is put your host's dns in and your domain name will then point to your hosting company. If you aren't sure how to change the dns just watch our movies on it.

4. Website uptime and 30-day Money Back Guarantees

All servers must be rebooted from time to time, therefore it is impossible for a server to have a 100% uptime. A common ploy web hosting providers will use when offering an uptime guarantee is to only refund you for the time your site was offline. So say that you site was down for an entire day, 24 hours, and your hosting plan was $10 per month, the hosting company will only refund you around 33 cents, not much of a guarantee. Additionally, just because a company offers a guarantee does not mean they will honor it, what if you were not aware your site was down for a few hours. A guarantee is worthless unless the company is willing to stand behind it fully. Be sure to read the fine print on their guarantee before considering their guarantee as a factor in your hosting decision. A real uptime guarantee is one that will refund you 100% of your monthly hosting cost if your host can not deliver the uptime they promise. Many 30 Day money back guarantees will only be refunded if

Additional Resources

Web Hosting Guide

Web Hosting Myths

How to switch hosts without causing your site to appear down.

4-Easy Steps to find the web host you deserve, avoid the scams.