Good web hosting is hard to find. No doubt, when you go looking for it there are plenty of companies offering it, but if you’re anything like most people you will have found that the ones who make the boldest claims are, all too often, the ones who haven’t got a clue what they are doing. It is refreshing, then, to see a site like Mega Hosting’s, which doesn’t stand on ceremony, just telling you what it will give you and leaving you to make the decision.

What it will give you is impressive enough on its own merits. With no setup fee, you can move straight to building your website and let the powerful software do the rest for you. All of the loose ends are tied up for you leaving you to create your website and launch it, then wait for the hits to start rolling in. This is a serious web host for serious times, and a real breath of fresh air for anyone who has been messed about by various web hosting companies in the past. Those companies could learn a lot from Mega Hosting.

It is encouraging to see, too, that they offer a domain registration service that is considerably more straightforward than any we’ve seen for a long time. The whole process is geared towards getting you up and running as quickly as possible, and makes for a hosting service that gives you minimal downtime, excellent customer service and all of this for a low price, too.

If you are tired of spending crazy amounts of money on web hosting which lets you down time and again, you’re not alone. There are so many web hosting companies out there, each making the same claims for their effectiveness. This one has 99% uptime, that one has 99.9%, this one has dedicated support forums, who to choose? And then it turns out that the one you signed up for has a bunch of hidden costs and so many flaws it would make you cry. It’s hard not to feel like you are wasting your time.

Newage Marketing Hosting is such a breath of fresh air in this otherwise foggy world. It is connected to everything that you could dream of, and is constantly working to improve its uptime still further. But perhaps the most impressive thing is the speed with which it updates everything. Check your statistics to see how you are doing – then check back again in five minutes and see how promptly the new details have been added. And it doesn’t just monitor the hits, it gets them for you too with search engine submits.

The service provided by Newage Web Hosting means that you don’t need to do anything more – it is all laid on here and gives you an instant head start on everyone else, making it a simple matter of strapping yourself in and watching things get decidedly more interesting for you and your company. If you’re still looking for the right web hosting, stop. You’ve found it.

It’s probably best to come out and say it, so here goes: there is no such thing as business web hosting. Honestly. Here’s why:

Placing the word ‘business’ in front of a service gives it an aura of authority. It also has a powerful psychological effect on the end user; they see business, and somehow in their minds, it becomes synonymous with ‘professional’ – and who doesn’t want to be professional?

However, when it comes to business web hosting, there’s nothing a web hosting company can offer that they couldn’t also offer to ‘private’ or ‘personal’ clients. They’re just using the word ‘business’ to catch people’s attention.

Everyone, no matter be it business or domestic, buys the same thing from a web hosting company: web space, sometimes a domain name, and associated services. It isn’t like there’s some big server warehouse, storing superbly brilliant servers that can only be used for business customers.

The main difference between business and just old regular domestic web hosting is the price. Business price plans can be up to a third more expensive than their personal counterparts. They may have some flashy extra features or support options, but very rarely is it enough to make the difference in price worthwhile.

If you are looking to host a business website, ignore the word ‘business’ when you’re looking for web hosting. All you need is good, honest, reliable and affordable web hosting – it doesn’t matter what type of customer the web host caters to if they offer that. Just select the best available package you can find and host your business website on it, and save a bundle of cash as you do so.

Question: “I recently bought a web hosting package for one year; I paid the whole year up front so I could get a substantial discount. I’m now two months in to the year, and my web hosting company are awful! There’s endless downtime, they don’t respond to support tickets and my site runs so slowly it’s unusable. Can I get a refund?”

Answer:

Unfortunately, the simple answer is no. If you have paid for a service up front, then you have to live with it until the contract period is up – and make sure it isn’t set to auto-renew. This is one of the risks you take when you pay up front for a service you’re unfamiliar with.

It’s a painful lesson to learn, and you shouldn’t feel a fool for it. Sometimes web hosting companies advertise offers and services that sound so good you cannot resist, and it’s only when you’ve paid for a year-long hosting that you realise they’ve failed to deliver on their promises.

You can try looking through the small print of the terms and conditions of the sale. If, for example, your web host has a clause in the terms and conditions that promises a response to support tickets within 48 hours – and you can prove they have not responded to support tickets in that time, by time-stamping screen-shots – then you may be able to get them to cancel the plan and refund you. You are, however, completely at the mercy of the web hosting company and their professionalism; but it is worth a try if they have broken their own terms and conditions.

Question: “I recently bought a package with a big name web hosting supplier, and it included a free domain name with the web space. I’ve since discovered I bought more space than I need. I have a few other site ideas: is it possible to buy another domain name for the existing web space I have, or am I restricting to only using that space with the free domain name I got with the space?”

Answer:

Web hosting companies don’t like to promote it, but yes, you can host more than one domain name within the same package of space. Of course, web hosting companies would rather keep this quiet so that you buy a new domain name and package for your second site! However, this is avoidable.

All you need to do is buy a new domain name with a domain name selling company. You then need to point the domain nameservers (usually found in domain control settings within your account at the domain name company) to the servers of your existing web space. If you don’t have this information, ask your web host; they will provide it.

You then enter the nameservers of your hosting space in to the settings on your new domain name.

With that done, you can ‘add on’ the new domain to the existing space in CPanel. There’s even a handy button for it: just click ‘Add-On Domains’ and enter the domain details. Providing you’ve set up the nameservers correctly, the new domain name will now point to your existing web space.

Scientists have recently discovered that cats can sing the national anthem of the country they were born in if you ask them nicely.

Let’s guess; you don’t believe that, do you? Of course not, it’s ludicrous, yet many a web hosting company sells their services on the very premise that if they write it, customers will believe it’s true. And why do they do that? Because, in most cases, they’re right.

The point here is that, when searching for reliable web hosting, don’t believe everything you read – especially if it’s the web host that are saying it. While every company on the world exagerrates in their advertising campaigns, web hosting companies are infamous for it due to the fierce competition in the market place. They’ll say things and claim things that just aren’t true, while storing the facts away in the small print terms and conditions so they’re covered legally should anyone challenge their claims.

One of the biggest claims made by web hosting companies is to super-technological feats of reliability. Everyone wants reliable web hosting – that’s a given – so by claiming something like 99% up time, a web host knows they’re going to get potential customer’s attention. What they don’t tell you is how often that 99% is; is it 99% uptime per day, per week, per year? If it’s per year, that’s still a lot of down time you’re going to have to deal with.

Finding reliable web hosting is all about asking around on internet forums and websites for true customer feedback on the offers available. Never, ever believe everything a web hosting company says.

If you are in the market for a new web hosting provider, you’ve probably seen a lot of advertising literature. Adverts claiming that X company is the best, for X reasons, and for X amazing price. Everyone is out to impress and to snare your business, and they’ll say anything to catch your eye. That’s why the word “unlimited” is so over-used when it comes to web hosting companies advertising literature.

The promise is usually something along the lines of “unlimited space” or perhaps “unlimited bandwidth”. And you immediately think: wow! That’s a good deal! I’m going to get server space, a web host and everything I need – and I don’t need to worry about my site becoming too big, because my space and bandwidth is unlimited! So that’s the company you sign up for.

Well, it pains us to burst your bubble, but there’s no such thing as unlimited web space.

When these companies advertise ‘unlimited’ space, they are relying on their consumers to only use a small amount of space. Even with limited web hosting plans, few consumers ever use more than 75% of the space provided – so a web host company knows that they can offer ‘unlimited’ service because it’s unlikely they will ever be required to supply unlimited web space.

In reality, they have just the same server storage capabilities as anyone, and they are limited – it just so happens their limits are wide, and they can afford to entice people with an ‘unlimited’ offer. The moral here is do not be fooled by the offer of ‘unlimited’ space; only ever buy the amount of web space you need, because you’ll probably find you don’t even need that much.

Getting a bargain, saving money, spending less than we expected – it all sounds great, doesn’t it? There’s very few people on this earth who wouldn’t jump at the chance to grab a bargain, so it’s therefore no surprise that those looking for web hosting are any different. In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of queries for “cheap web hosting” every month with search engines.

So, yes, getting a bargain is good – but one question you have to ask yourself if you’re searching for cheap web hosting is this: Can I really afford cheap web hosting?

That may so ridiculous – of course you can afford it! It’s cheap! That’s the whole point, right? – but there are different ways and means of ‘affording’ things. For example, can you afford – can you allow yourself, your website and your business interests – to be subjected to a poor service from your web hosting company?

While everyone likes a bargain, it’s only a bargain if it’s good value for money. If you pay $20 per year for web hosting, that might sound great, but the associated problems – down time, server crashes and perhaps worse – suddenly makes the deal seem less attractive. If you are only running a small personal site, maybe you can afford to put up with those issues for the sake of saving the pennies – but if you’re looking to make your website a money-making scheme, then you definitely cannot.

The key here is affordability. Don’t look for cheap web hosting providers, just affordable ones that still offer a high, consistent level of good service. Your business will thank you for it in the long run.

For most website owners, a shared web hosting plan will be perfectly serviceable for their needs. This means that you share a server with many other websites – websites unaffiliated to your own website, and the link is untraceable also. It’s cheaper, efficient and these shared servers can handle medium to large sites without difficulty.

However, if you are trying to run your site on a shared server that is too small to host your site, you’ll notice quickly. For a start, loading times on your site will fall dramatically, and you’ll probably start to lose visitor numbers, too. You will also experienced a slow down of uploading times to the server, making your site a pain to update, and server crashes will become a more frequent worry. If any of this sounds familiar, you may need to consider a dedicated server.

Rather than sharing your server with other users, a dedicated server works exactly as the name suggested: the server is dedicated to your site, and yours alone. Transferring a big site to a dedicated server will eliminate all of the aforementioned problems, and your site will load and run quickly once again.

As you would expect given the nature of the service being provided, dedicated servers are more expensive than their shared counterparts. Costs vary, but anything around $70 to $120 per month is a usual pricing structure for a dedicated server.

Before you make this outlay, you need to ensure you really need it. If you make money on your site and rely on it, you cannot afford for the down time that a shared server may bring. If, however, your site is just a hobby, it may be worth exploring other alternatives first.

Many a web hosting company attracts clients based on their promise of nightly, weekly or monthly back ups of the sites you host with them. These back ups are usually a key selling point for many consumers, who like the security it brings. In the event of a server crash, your site will be protected no matter what, and restoring it should be simple.

Mostly, web host companies back ups are a good thing – they provide stability and allow the website owner to relax. However, these packages do promote laziness; and many a business owner ceases to create their own back up files when they know their web hosting company are doing it too. This is a dangerous trap to get in to; while no one is looking to discourage you from buying a hosting plan that includes back ups by the web hosts, you should be aware of the continued necessity to create your own copies, too.

Web hosting companies are usually reliable. However, in the case of a server crash and you needing to restore your site from nothing, you don’t want to take any chances. You definitely don’t want to discover they have been reneging on their side of the deal, and have not been making back ups, after you’ve lost your site.

There’s no real way to verify your site is being backed up beyond requesting copies of those back ups. Some web hosts will do this, but even if they do, always keep making your own back up copies of your website – without fail.