Sri Lanka Linux Hosting Blog

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.