Busting 10 Popular Web Hosting Myths
Having the right web host can make a big difference when it comes to the success of your website. Unfortunately, many people are under some misconceptions regarding web hosts. Before you can choose the best web hosting company, you must be able to separate the facts from the myths. That is why we’re going to expose the 10 biggest myths regarding web hosting in this article.
You Need to be Tech Savvy to Get the Most Out of Web Hosting
This may have been true when the first websites were built decades ago, but it’s far from the case now. With today’s user friendly control panels, anyone can build a website. The better web hosting companies offer simple website building tools that allow you to create a site from scratch in a few clicks.There is always a certain learning curve when doing something new. However, web hosting today is designed to be newbie friendly. The high tech aspects of running your site are handled remotely by the hosting company. Of course, more advanced users enjoy coding and tweaking their sites, but this is not something that you have to do to build a professional and attractive website.
All Web Hosting Companies are the Same
You’ve probably seen ads for dozens of different web hosts. It’s easy to conclude that all of these companies are offering the same services at very similar prices, so why bother to shop around for the best one? The fact is, however, that there can be very significant differences between different companies.
One area where even an apparently small difference is very important is uptime. This is the amount of time that your website is actually online – a number that is ideally very close to 100%. Some companies advertise 99% uptime, while others don’t mention it at all. You should realize that any significant amount of downtime can have a harmful effect on your site. For example, 98% uptime might sound pretty good, but it actually means that your site is offline for almost a half hour per day, or more than 3 hours per week!
Customer service is another area where companies vary a great deal. Consider, for instance, the difference between having to wait 3 minutes for someone to answer your call or having to wait 25 minutes. Even more importantly, some customers service reps are far more helpful and knowledgeable than others. Beyond this, web hosts differ in their prices, the features they offer and in how user friendly they are. These are reasons to do thorough research before making a choice!
The Best Way to Start Out is With Free Web Hosting
The idea of getting something for free is always appealing. When you want to start a website, it can be tempting to opt for free web hosting, which is offered by quite a few companies. Yet, as with most free items, there is always some kind of catch. Free web hosting comes with one or more catches. These include:
- The companies ads on your site. This is distracting to visitors and detracts from your own brand.
- Limited features. This may include sub-domains, disk space or the number of pages you can have for your website.
- Poor customer service.
- Slow loading pages. This is bad for both SEO and visitor retention.
Good web hosting doesn’t cost that much. It’s better to get your website off to a strong start and get high quality hosting rather than cut corners to save a mere few dollars per month.
The More Expensive Web Hosting is, the Better it Must be
While free hosting is not the bargain it may seem to be, that doesn’t mean you have to pay a lot for hosting. Some of the best web hosts, in fact, charge less than $10 per month. If you sign up during a special promotion, you can often find hosting for less than $5 per month. While you should always look at the big picture, such as all of the features offered by the company and its overall reputation, you don’t have to pay top dollar to get the best service.
The Best Web Hosts Have No Bad Reviews
Online reviews have become a popular way to make choices. This is equally true for restaurants, physical products and web hosting companies. While it’s good to do research and read reviews, it’s not realistic to expect to find no negative reviews for a large and reputable company. A web host with no bad reviews is likely to be small or inexperienced and probably doesn’t have many reviews of any kind. Larger companies, on the other hand, tend to have lots of positive and negative reviews. To get a realistic picture, you have to read many reviews and look for a pattern. There will always be a few disgruntled customers who will write a bad review as soon as they encounter a problem – which could have been the customer’s own fault. There is also the problem of trolls and competitors writing negative reviews, something that is fairly common on the internet.
You Don’t Have to Consider Technical Specifications
As we have already mentioned, you don’t have to be a technical wizard to enjoy the benefits of web hosting. At the same time, you should still pay attention to what features a web host is offering. Some plans, for example, offer free website builders, unlimited add-on and sub-domains, MySQL databases and much more. It pays to shop around and find out which companies offer the best array of services.
Web Hosting Companies All Have Their Own Data Centers
This is something that you might assume, but it’s not always the case. In fact, unless a company explicitly tells you that they have their own data centers, there’s a good chance that they are outsourcing this. Using third-party data centers is very common in the web hosting industry. Just because a web hosts outsources data centers doesn’t mean it offer poor service. But there are definite advantages to dealing with a company that handles everything in-house. If this is your preference, you’ll have to look for a web host that clearly tells you this is the case.
It’s Best to Get Your Domain and Web Hosting From the Same Company
Some web hosting companies offer a free domain with their web hosting plans. There are also domain registrars, such as Namecheap.com that also offer hosting. While it can be convenient to get these two services from the same company, you shouldn’t make your decision on this basis.Registering a domain is not a complicated process. You shouldn’t simply sign up for web hosting because it’s a one-stop transaction that includes your domain. You should seek the web hosting that offers the most value. If they happen to offer a domain as part of the package, that’s fine. But this shouldn’t be the sole reason you choose a web host.
The Simplest Choice is to Outsource Web Hosting
While the idea of outsourcing everything is getting popular these days, some things are best done yourself. As we’ve already noted, it’s now easier than ever to build a website using the tools provided by a web hosting company. If you outsource this, you are setting yourself up for potential problems and unnecessary expenses. Every time you need even a minor change – such as a typo or misspelling fixed – you will have to call the person you hired. It’s much easier to get comfortable with logging into your own control panel and making the changes yourself.
If You Use a Windows Computer You Need Windows Hosting
Most web hosting plans use either Linux or Windows servers. There are pros and cons to each, but this has nothing to do with the kind of computer or operating system you are using. The majority of web hosting plans actually use Linux, which is generally cheaper. This is perfectly compatible with a Windows based computer.
See Past These Myths and Find the Best Web Hosting
There are many factors to consider when choosing a web host. Before you make your decision, make sure you’re not being influenced by one of the above myths about web hosting. It’s best to look at a variety of web hosting companies and do some comparison shopping. Read reviews as well, but don’t believe everything everyone writes. The better informed you are, the easier it is to make an intelligent choice and find the best value.
