This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
Are you looking to expand your business online and your provider is promising you a cheap server hosting? A lot of service providers might even offer you Windows VPS at the price of shared hosting. Well, there is more to this than meets the eye. Here are a few things you must clarify with your provider before you ink your signature in any sort of work-agreement.
Quality Support- Almost all providers provide basic support for their services. Sooner or later technical glitches or issues are bound to happen with the server. Consequently, you might end up losing site-traffic or more importantly business. Talk or research about the support quality of your hosting provider and make due note to the average (or estimated) turnaround time (TAT) that your provider takes to solve queries and issues.
Downtime- A slow loading sloth-like website is a mark of incompetency for some customers. A big percentage of our clientele are those who chose to host their website with cheap providers and faced so much downtime that they were forced to migrate to a more reliable services like ours. On an estimate only 25-30 % visitors wait for the website to load completely, the remaining 75 % abandon immediately. If you frequently run into these many downtimes, we suggest you to switch to a more reliable host. Pay attention to whether your host is undertaking a minimum uptime commitment or uptime guarantee for your hosting services. You can claim a compensation against uptime guarantee (depending upon the mutually agreed T&Cs of your work agreement) but not against an uptime commitment.
Knowing your needs- If you run a domain that collects sensitive info (like credit card data) from users, we recommend you to choose a more secured VPS Hosting for your Linux or Windows based platform. Be sure as to what you are being offered under the umbrella of ‘cheap hosting’. A VPS hosting will cost you more than a shared hosting. Reputed businesses do not risk losing client’s data to wrong hands. Know your disk space requirement and that you are being offered sufficient disk space in server. It is no good paying for services, however cheap it might be, that does not stand up to your business needs.
Security- Security is especially important for servers dealing with priority data. Virus and other phishing attempts could impose threats to your business’ credibility. It is recommended to get hosted on more-secured VPS if security is a prime concern for your business. Cheap providers may not frequently monitor their servers even for a VPS-hosted client.
Download limit- Your provider might set certain download or monthly usage restriction on your server. We find it surprising that people are completely unaware of the fact that their usage limit can exceed without them downloading any data (on their part) to their server. When a customer visits a website, some data is downloaded from the server to the target computer while loading the webpage. This most often account for the data usage exhaustion.
Reseller hosting- Clarify if what you are being offered is not a reseller hosted server. A reseller buys bulk space in server and sells them independently as his own. In this case the services are only as good as your reseller. If the reseller faces any issue at his end the same will be reflected to all his (reseller’s) clients. Changing web host on a reseller-hosted servers could be a pain.
Reliability- Choosing a reliable hosting service is vital. Many people fail to consider the potential business that they lose in a race to acquire low-cost hosting service. VPS, on the other hand, is more reliable than a shared server but costs more than the latter. Hosting on unreliable servers can cause harm to your client base and more severely to your reputation.
While hosting on a VPS it is important to adhere to the correct platform for your requirement. A windows based VPS, although offering a great interface, is less secured when compared with a Linux based VPS. Linux, being an open-source operating system will cost way less than the commercialized windows based operating system. Thus, there will be a considerable price difference even between a cheap Windows VPS and a reliable Linux-based Virtual Private Server. While Linux is known for its robustness, Windows, too, provides another level of user experience altogether.
To conclude, it takes a lot of ‘cutting corners’ for the service provider to host your server at promised cost. Choosing a cheap hosting may cause you a compromise with service quality, security, and reliability. Price is an important aspect- but not the only aspect- while deciding on a hosting provider. A reliable host could prove to be more economical in long run. A cheap 60$ hosting might not be worth even that much as it can: a) Cost you hundreds of dollar worth of business b) Hamper your rapport building. Instead, choosing a reliable 90$ service provider will be a more viable option.