Things to Avoid
Here are some things to watch out for when selecting a web host. While some are just business practices of the industry or minor annoyances, some are tricks meant to deceive. You can usually find them by carefully reading a prospective host's terms of use and acceptable use policies.
- Daily transfer limits. Very few hosts have such limits, but you should be aware that you can't just multiply by 30 to get the monthly transfer limit because transfer usage is uneven.
- Limits on file size. Some hosts limit maximum sizes of files (not to the total space used for all files, but the maximum size of a single file). This can prevent you from using large graphics (which I don't recommend without a thumbnail anyway...) as well as keep customers from downloading certain files.
- Not allowing downloads. Some hosts will prohibit a large percentage of your transfer limit from being used on downloads.
- FTP transfer limit. A few hosts have limits on FTP use.
- Bad uptime guarantees. These guarantees usually have multiple qualifications, such as making only unannounced uptime count. Such qualifications make uptime guarantees practically useless. Avoid these kind of companies!
- Limit on database size that is only listed in the terms of use.
- Very high extra space and additional transfer costs. It is normal for extra space and transfer to cost more than they do for the initial account, but these additional costs can often be way too high.
- No emergency phone number. Many of the cheapest hosts only have email or chat support.
- Severe limits on resource use. All hosts impose some CPU limits on shared plans but some hosts forbid all resource intensive scripts, such as message boards.
- Slow setup. Many hosts are not fully automated (sometimes to prevent fraud) and the setup can take a couple of business days.
- No support on weekends.
- No control panel. This may be OK for experienced webmasters but many new users need a control panel.
- No POP access to emails. Some hosts only offer Web access to site's email accounts.
- Limit on monthly site hits. A few hosts do that in addition to transfer limits.
- No money back guarantee.
