Webmaster Papers








Cheap Hosting Packages and Low Cost Web Hosting - Watch For Hidden Costs


If you're shopping around for an affordable web hosting plan, knowing what services you want and what you should pay for them can help you pick out hidden costs that could launch your cheap hosting plan into an expense you just can't afford. Here are a few things to be on the watch for when you're shopping for the best low-cost web hosting plan for your personal or business web site.

A La Carte Pricing

Don't be pulled in by impossibly low prices. While the explosion of reseller web hosting has dropped web hosting costs to bargain basement prices, you should still expect to pay for quality, dependable, professional web hosting services. A la carte prices can make a web hosting plan seem like an incredibly good deal, but be sure to know exactly what you need and what you'll be paying for it. When you add in setup fees, upgrade fees and additional monthly fees for things like scripting support, a mySQL database and php support, you can end up paying far more for your affordable plan than if you'd opted to pay a few dollars more for a more inclusive plan.

Read the Fine Print

Read through every little entry in the comparison chart to see what you're being charged for, and what fees you might incur if you go over your monthly limits. If something isn't clear, or isn't listed, email the company to ask what they charge for particular services and if there's a setup fee. It will tell you more than just how much the services cost - it will tell you how well they respond to support and help requests.

Unlimited May Not Be Unlimited

Don't put your reading glasses away yet. If a plan promises 'unlimited traffic', read the fine print to see how they define 'unlimited'. Many web hosting providers use 'typical usage patterns' to define what unlimited means. If your web site becomes popular enough to exceed what's normal for other web sites of your size, you could end up getting charged extra for bandwidth even if it says 'unlimited'.

E-Commerce Ready Sites for Cheap Prices

Check to see what's actually included in that cheap e-commerce ready site. Does it include access to their secure server, or will you have to purchase your own license? Is there a good deal on bill-collecting services and credit card access, or will you have to arrange your own? Be sure you know what you're getting for your money so you can plan your web hosting expenses wisely.

There are a lot of legitimately good web hosting deals to be had, but just like any other purchase, it pays to do your homework to make sure that you get the most affordable, most professional and best web hosting deal you can find.

To view our recommended web hosts, visit, Recommended Web Hosting Companies.

Carrie Reeder is the owner of eZerk, an informational website, with articles and the latest news about various topics.

RELATED ARTICLES


How to Get Better Technical Support
Whenever you have a technical question that needs answering, you want that answer as fast as possible, right? In the instantaneous world of the internet, patience has become a rare commodity, and the time you spend unable to send or receive email or waiting for your website to come back online can mean lost revenue. If you want to get a timely response from your support technician, there are things you can do as a customer to speed up the process:
Budget Web Hosting - Are They All Created Equal?
Choosing a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. In fact, choosing any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for "web hosting" with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it'll return over 5 million documents! That doesn't mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That's a lot of web hosts. How can you choose one that meets your need?
Five Quick Ways to Determine One Hosting Company From Another
These days, web hosting companies are popping up faster than dandelions. And just like those pesky weeds, they usually aren't going to benefit your business at all. So how do you pick out one hosting company for another for that big Internet move? Below I've provided you some quick ways to sift out the sheep from the wolves.
Advanced Hosting for the Mission Critical Web Presence
As companies that conduct their business online have proliferated, hosting of those websites that provide the primary point of contact for transaction of business has become highly mission critical; having these sites go offline or perform poorly not only loses revenue but also detracts from the company's image and loses customer loyalty.
Nine Things To Know Before Selecting The Web Host For Your Business
It may seem simple yet it is often times overlooked. When it comes to choosing the right Internet hosting provider for their websites, the majority of business owners or companies know very little about making the best Internet/web hosting decisions.
CGI Web Hosting ? 3 Essential Scripts for Your Business
If there's one thing that people love it is a web site that has plenty of automated features. Sites that are highly interactive tend to get the most traffic and generate the most business for the companies that run them. Automated features can also play a "behind the scenes" role, making your site easier to use, run smoothly and allow for things like online sales and password protection.
Free or Paid Web Hosting?
Just finished your first website? So it's the time to look for some hosting and make a choise. Your first qustion probably will be whether to choose free or paid hosting service. Let's have a look at some advantages and disadvantages of these solutions. Free web hosting: (+) It's for free. You don't need to pay for domain name. (-) Your URL will be something like username.freehost.com or freehost.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). (-) 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. (-) Free hosts usually allow lower bandwith then paid hosts and a lot of them don't offer futures like PHP and MySQL. (-) 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. (-) Sometimes happens that free hosts cancel their free service and longer offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choises - pay them or loose your website. Paid web hosting: (+) You can host your own domain. 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. (+) Most paid hosts offer 24/7 support via email or live chat and some of them provide toll-free phone support. (+) You can expect better uptime then on free host. Some paid hosts offer uptime guarantee. (+) Paid hosts usually offer enough disk space and bandwith. Futures like PHP and MySQL are standard. Even if you are not programmer you can download plenty of free PHP scripts from internet. (-) Paid hosting coast money :o)
Reseller Hosting: The Good and The Bad!
Reseller webhosting can be a great way to earn some extra money on the side for your business or even a full time job once you get into it. Though this can be a great way to do business, it can come with some un-foreseen downsides, headaches and a whole lot more. Not to say that you can't be successful at it, but you must first take the steps to assure that down the road it doesn't ruin your business.
Managed Hosting Services - Who Benefits from It?
Managed Hosting Services are used primarily by companies that either don't have staff with the expertise to manage a dedicated server or don't have staff with the time to attend to the needs of managed hosting. In either case the option of having the host manage the server can be of great value to firms that have such needs.
UNIX vs. Windows- What Server Operating System Should You Use for Your Web Hosting?
So you've decided to create a website? The most obvious thing that you need is of course web hosting. Among other things, like cost and features, you'll need to decide which server you'll need: Windows (NT, 2000 or XP) or Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.).
Virtual Web Hosting - What Is Virtual Web Hosting?
If your web site has outgrown its shared hosting solution, it may be time to move it to virtual hosting, which is often seen as a low cost alternative to getting your own dedicated server. A virtual server gives you most of the advantages of a dedicated server at a fraction of the price. The web hosting service takes advantage of the fact that few small to mid-size web sites need the full resources of a machine and puts several web sites on the same server.
Domain Name and Web Hosting Hell
Does GoDaddy really suck?
Website Sitebuilders: Easy to use Website builders Come with a Price
Professional web designers don't come cheap. A good web designer can easily charge you $1000 or more for a five page website. This high cost leads many people to tackle web design for themselves. How hard can it be? Get yourself an HTML editor, throw up a website and voila! Your website is live right? Wrong! There is a lot of knowledge you need to develop before you can get your self made website onto the internet.
How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?
Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:
Cheap Web Hosting, What To Look For And What To Stay Away From
"Bargains for sale, Unlimited Hosting for only a Dollar."
Dedicated Web Hosting Is Easy When You Know These 3 Timesaving Secrets
Dedicated web hosting has its difficulties and problems from time to time like all technology. However, there are certain things you can do to prepare yourself for any server downtime or other problems that might arise. The key, however, to these tips is that you are aware of them before the problem occurs rather than afterwards. The following three timesaving tips will help you with your dedicated web hosting and save you a lot of time.
Dedicated Server Price Check
The price of dedicated hosting services has really come down in the past couple of years. In fact, prices have dropped so much for the "budget dedicated server" market. While competitive conditions in both the hosting industry and the computer hardware industry have contributed to the reduction in dedicated hosting costs, don't think that prices were that inflated in the first place. Budget servers are fantastic but it takes more than a competitive market to offer services at such great prices. Much thanks to the great overbuilds of networks, data centers and computer hardware in the dot-com days, companies with a bit of buying power can acquire the hard-resources it takes to provide a good quality un-managed dedicated server for a great price. Finding a dedicated server for $199 a month or less these days is not that difficult. When shopping for your dedicated server, consider more than just price. Managed Services Before just lining up the amount of ram, the processor speed, the data transfer and the price ask yourself - what else can this company do for me that I need now, or may need down the road. While there are plenty that do it, a 1 person effort to maintain a mission critical or high traffic server is no easy task. It helps to have others helping look out for your interests as well. Check to see if your host provides managed services such as backups, monitoring, firewalls and intrusion detection. Sometime they may be included in the plan but nearly always can be negotiated in at a reasonable price and can be well worth the investment. Technical Support The level of support received with your dedicated services is important as well. Some dedicated hosts offer email only support in order to keep costs down while others flat out charge a fee for a support ticket. Your preferred method of receiving support plus the level and frequency in which you will need it should certainly be considered. The Quality of Your Network Most dedicated hosting providers these days have pretty substantial internet connectivity. Nonetheless, it is something you should be aware of. Look for a host that has redundant connectivity via multiple providers insuring as much connectivity uptime as possible. Some of the major connectivity providers these days are Sprint, UUNet, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest and Cogent. Summary A very cheap server deal does not simply mean you are dealing with an overly generous hosting company or that another provider is ripping you off at a higher rate. While some hosts do price more competitively than others, there are associates costs that must be covered. When shopping for your next dedicated server just keeps in mind you may not always be comparing apples to apples. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com
Finding a reliable hosting provider
The website hosting business is very competitive these days with hundreds of thousands of reliable hosting companies out there but what company is best for your needs and that will provide you with a reliable hosting service from customer support to the reliability of there web servers.
7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host
With literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, carefully consider these key points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible.
Top 6 Ways to Promote Your Web Hosting Business Part 1
Promoting a new company in the crowded industry of web hosting today is really hard. There are many tactics that work well and are legitimate, and you can use them to promote your company using them.