How to avoid a bad web host

Check around and you’ll find a plenty of of uk business class hosting nightmare stories. Many companies have their websites hosted without knowing it by teenagers. Wondering why their website hosting and emails suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, and the host is not returning emails, well they would be unable to! or their telephone. The cause? Little Johnny has had his computer taken away and been grounded for getting a detention. So, my rather hypothetical situation sounds far fetched possibly? Have a look at Google again, there is much worse situations webmasters have found themselves in. Becasue? They picked a bad web host. While no one has a foolproof way of avoiding bad webhosts, there is some tips I will give you on typical signs on the website of the company.

No postal address on the hosting companies site.

No contact address for a start breaks distance selling regulations in the UK. What good company wouldn’t provide a postal address to send a letter to in case of a problem? A business that doesn’t provide a mailing address stinks of a bedroom web host.

Reckoning to have multiple datacentres of there own.

I do not know about you, but I preffer doing my business with companies who are honest, or try to be honest. If you ran a small local shop, you wouldn’t claim to own a chain of supermarkets nationwide. This is the same for web hosts reckoning to ‘have’ their own datacentre. I will tell you now only a very few of the hosts actually have the resources to run a datacentre. Not owning your own datacentre is usually not a bad thing. But a web host claiming they do when they don’t, is generally bad news.

Speedy response to any emails sent?

In the electronic age, email is the new choice of communication. So often if you have a few pre-sales queries about a service you’d expect to be able to fire off an email with your questions and receice a response back in your inbox. Its the same as if a company did not answer the phone, would you want to trust them with your business? Similarly if a web host takes more than a day to reply to a sales email it does not bode well. If they take that long to answer a sales email, when they can potentially earn money, how quickly will they respond when you need help? That been said don’t be fooled by the web host that will reply to your sales email within a few moments, but when you need support don’t care.

How does the English sum up?

Big indicating factor normally is the professionalism of the host, what is the spelling and grammar like? You have no doubt come accross websites with wrongly spelt words who claim to be the ‘garetest’ web host on the ‘word wipe web’. What if your host can’t take the time to spell check their website or has not the ability to spell, the sales speech to convince you with, can you really trust them with your website?

How do you find a reputable web host?

On the other hand there are a number of reputable business hosting companies. We have only just touched the top of the iceberg on spotting a poor web host. Making your choice on a web host is very hard. When picking your next business quality web host, make sure you do your home work please. Look on the internet for reviews and where possible speak to other customers of theirs. Google is a fantastic tool for dishing the dirt. Try searching the company and find what comes up. Above all, remember when you pay for your hosting, pay monthly so you can move on if the host turns bad, and if the nasty stuff does hit the wall make sure you get a backup. Best of luck.

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