Tips and Tricks to Help You Choose the Best Web Host

Web Hosting Best Practices

When it came time to pick a web host you did your research. You scoured the forums for reviews. You emailed the company's sales department and got a reply in less than hour. Even after that you were not convinced until you read A. Fillate's blog post: "Harry's Spider Leg Hosting: The Best Web Hosting Ever". He was very convincing.

So why then has your site been down for four days? To make matters worse, Harry was running a special and offered to register your domain for free. Your control panel is down along with the rest of the site and you can't get in to change the name servers to point to your new host. Assuming you eventually regain control of your site, a series of best practices can prevent this from happening again.

Review The Reviewer

One of the biggest problems with web hosting reviews comes from the industry practice of using affiliates. Many hosting companies offer excellent incentives for affiliates who drive sign-ups. In addition to an initial referral payment, the affiliate will often earn a recurring monthly commission as long as the person stays with the host.

While most affiliates are completely honest sales people, the lure of passive income does draw the unscrupulous as well. Less than honest affiliates will often use comments in blog posts, or one sided reviews that just happen to include an affiliate link to the host they promote.

This is not to say that reviews are without value. They can be a good first step to get a group of hosts for further examination. Just make sure not to base your decision exclusively on reviews.

Plan For Problems

Before spending any time examining a host, decide on the level and type of technical support you require. Many web hosts only offer email and forum based support. If you need phone based support, you can eliminate some options without any further work.