It is a sad truth that everyone is a newbie at some point, and most if not all of us have made the same mistake… getting ourselves stuck with a poor web host because we stupidly paid for a yearly subscription.
Even if you have never heard anything bad about them, you should always “test out” a web host for a couple of months before emptying your bank account on a long-term contract. Most hosts offer a 30-day money back guarantee, however, I suspect that many hosts treat you like a king during that 30 days then treat you like crap afterwards. At least that is what has happened to me in the past.
One of my previous hosts, who shall remain nameless, was excellent the first month. No complaints at all. Literally the 31st day of my service everything went downhill, and my site was down constantly. I stupidly paid for a yearly contract… and ohh did I regret it afterwards. For a year the host and I sent probably 1,000 e-mails back and forth. Toward the end of our agreement they treated me like a king again, and gave me all sorts of free goodies. Oh how kind.
Many other hosts are the same way. They treat you nicely, then treat you like crap, then treat you nicely toward the end of your contact. Why? Because they want you money. Sadly most web hosts don’t care about their customers at all, they only care about the customer’s credit card.
The best way to avoid these problems is to pay for 2 or 3 months of hosting (either monthly, or all at once) just to “test them out.” If after the 30 days they treat you like crap, then you should probably look for a new host. If a host gives you horrible service after 2 or 3 months then that is just bad luck. All it takes is one bad server move, or even a couple of bad new employees to destroy a host’s reputation.
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
April 10th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
It’s not the Host that likes or dislikes you. It’s the representative that likes and dislikes you.
If you’re over your 30 day trial, they can’t offer you anything new for commission, but when it comes time to renew, they’ll throw you the goodies so they get the commission.
I found this page to be very helpful in finding hosting. Web Hosting Jury has reviews from real people that have experienced the good and the bad.
Host Monster was the top of the list when I got them. So for I like what I see and it’s been a few months now. *knock on wood*
April 10th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I got in this same situation many years ago. I found a good host and have been with them for almost 4 year. The only downtime I have had has been a random hard drive going out a few years back. They were responsive as I knew they would be. http://www.sprintserve.net if anyone is interested. I also have accounts with aSamllorange and HostGator just as wanted to try them out.
April 10th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I use HostGator shared hosting for this site, I absolutely love it. Site has thus far (since August) had nearly 100% uptime (goes down for a few seconds here and there for system updates, but that is really rare) and i’ve only had to contact tech support once, and that was for a quick pre-purchase question. Some people say their tech people are mean, but since I haven’t really had to contact them I can’t say if they are or aren’t.
Also, I wrote a post up a while back about picking a good web host, it goes through pretty much everything (disk space, customer service, resource usage, DDoS prevention…etc), a good read.
And yeah, Web Hosting Jury is awesome. Never ever trust “professionals” who rate web hosts, as 9 times out of 10 they are getting paid. Most user review sites are much more accurate (although they can also be gamed by the host). Google is also a good tool.
Thanks for reading
June 13th, 2007 at 10:49 am
[…] nor am I hear to tell you how to find a good host (I’ve written many guides on it before, here, here, and here). I am simply here to tell you that you should never under any circumstance go for […]