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Should You Take Notice of Web Hosting Comments?

There is a temptation to look at web hosting comments, see a few negative items relating to a particular host and dismiss them but this can be a mistake. When reading web hosting comments it is useful to bear in mind the following:

* The services provided by hosting companies do differ. There is no point in complaining about lack of support for a particular technology if this was never promised in the first place.
* Users will generally complain more readily than they will praise so it would be surprising if there were no negative web hosting comments about a host.
* The bigger the hosting company the more negative comments you would expect to see.
* Many negative web hosting comments would not have been necessary if users had read the Terms of Service (although some hosts could make the key terms clearer on their web sites).

When looking at web hosting comments about the major hosting companies I was struck by how many are about financial, contractual and support issues rather than technical issues. These can be:

Cancellations: Sometimes there is a procedure to follow which is set-out in the TOS. Not following this results in delays.

Domain Names (and cancellations): When a domain name is included in the package it has to be paid for if you cancel, even under a money back guarantee. This is spelt out in the TOS but the website may only say that the money back guarantee relates to hosting costs and the implication of this is lost on some users. Failure to get a full refund generates some of the more angry web hosting comments.

Renewals: Most hosts issue coupons/offer discounts but these apply to new customers only. Renewals are charged at the host’s standard rates, some websites do not make this clear.

Definition of “Unlimited”: Most hosts offer unlimited bandwidth, storage, databases etc. but whilst it clearly cannot be taken literally, definitions of “Unlimited” are vague. The use of unlimited does keep things simple and hosting companies know that most users will only use a small amount of resources. However we are talking about shared hosting so if a site does get busy it cannot be allowed to take resources to the detriment of other users. At this point you have to rely on the hosting company to deal with this reasonably. Of course users in this position will see the host as unreasonable and will probably post negative web hosting comments.

Backups: Hosting companies usually state that backups are the responsibility of the user. Whilst they do generally backup their shared servers periodically they do not accept any liability for lost data (not unreasonable given the low costs of hosting). Clearly anyone can suffer a hardware failure so you could be unlucky with any host.

To make sure you do not end up writing negative web hosting comments I suggest reading the TOS of your host thoroughly and taking your own regular backups.

Should You Take Notice of Web Hosting Comments?

There is a temptation to look at web hosting comments, see a few negative items relating to a particular host and dismiss them but this can be a mistake. When reading web hosting comments it is useful to bear in mind the following:

* The services provided by hosting companies do differ. There is no point in complaining about lack of support for a particular technology if this was never promised in the first place.
* Users will generally complain more readily than they will praise so it would be surprising if there were no negative web hosting comments about a host.
* The bigger the hosting company the more negative comments you would expect to see.
* Many negative web hosting comments would not have been necessary if users had read the Terms of Service (although some hosts could make the key terms clearer on their web sites).

When looking at web hosting comments about the major hosting companies I was struck by how many are about financial, contractual and support issues rather than technical issues. These can be:

Cancellations: Sometimes there is a procedure to follow which is set-out in the TOS. Not following this results in delays.

Domain Names (and cancellations): When a domain name is included in the package it has to be paid for if you cancel, even under a money back guarantee. This is spelt out in the TOS but the website may only say that the money back guarantee relates to hosting costs and the implication of this is lost on some users. Failure to get a full refund generates some of the more angry web hosting comments.

Renewals: Most hosts issue coupons/offer discounts but these apply to new customers only. Renewals are charged at the host’s standard rates, some websites do not make this clear.

Definition of “Unlimited”: Most hosts offer unlimited bandwidth, storage, databases etc. but whilst it clearly cannot be taken literally, definitions of “Unlimited” are vague. The use of unlimited does keep things simple and hosting companies know that most users will only use a small amount of resources. However we are talking about shared hosting so if a site does get busy it cannot be allowed to take resources to the detriment of other users. At this point you have to rely on the hosting company to deal with this reasonably. Of course users in this position will see the host as unreasonable and will probably post negative web hosting comments.

Backups: Hosting companies usually state that backups are the responsibility of the user. Whilst they do generally backup their shared servers periodically they do not accept any liability for lost data (not unreasonable given the low costs of hosting). Clearly anyone can suffer a hardware failure so you could be unlucky with any host.

To make sure you do not end up writing negative web hosting comments I suggest reading the TOS of your host thoroughly and taking your own regular backups.

Choosing the best Web hosting service that suits your needs

Web hosting has been one of the services offered around the web nowadays wherein it gives privilege to certain individual, institutions, or even companies to make their own website which can be accessed via the world wide web. Today there had been numerous types of web hosting that varies depending upon the needs and demands of their clients. To name the few here are the following.

1. Home server – a type of web hosting service best described as a single machine situated in private location. It can be in the form of purpose built machines connected to the web by a consumer grade local broadband connection.

2. Free web hosting service – with a limited service compared to paid ones, this are sometimes supported by ads, and commercials.

3. Grid Hosting – a type of web hosting which is composed of multiple nodes and where clusters of server are arranged and distributed forming a grid.

4. Shared web hosting – a type of web hosting service wherein all web domains share a common server location. This means that a webpage is placed on the same server as many other sites from few to thousands. This type is capable of being hosted with a reseller due to the fact that its features are quite extensive with either the CPU or RAM as the common server pool.

5. Clustered hosting – with the ability to have multiple server hosting capacity on sites with same content for great utilization of resources and able to separate web serving from database hosting, this type of hosting service is a perfect way for high availability dedicated hosting or scalable web hosting creation.

6. Reseller web hosting – a type of hosting where clients are given the opportunity to web host themselves, regardless of what web hosting classification or a combination of it are they going to consider but vary depending on it’s size.

7. Cloud hosting – a newly recognized form of web hosting where clients have the great privilege to a more reliable, powerful and scalable hosting basing upon clustered load balanced servers and utility billing. Considered to be more reliable than any other forms of web hosting, it is said that its computers can compensate when a single server piece is malfunctioning or lost, same time it is decentralized, thus local weather disruptions or even local power loss such as “blackout” bring less problem.

8. Virtually Dedicated Hosting Servers – known primarily as Virtual Private Server or (VPS) it has the capacity to divide server resources into virtual servers where resources can have allocation that does not directly influence the underlying hardware. Best example of this type of hosting are those being provided by massive multiplayer online games like MMORPG’s at which customers or consumers are obliged to maintain and patch the server to keep it updated.

9. Colocation Web hosting – quite similar to dedicated web hosting service, but has a feature that makes it different from the other, and that is the ability for the user to own the colo server. A physical space is being provided by certain hosting company which allows the server to take up and take care of. Considered to be the most powerful and most expensive form of web hosting, but sometimes the colocation provider may sometimes give little to no support directly to their client’s machine allowing internet, electrical access and storage facility to the server, that’s why in most instances an Administrator will be a great help in checking the data centers for any hardware change or upgrades.

10. Dedicated web host service – Here’s the thing, the client puts his or her own website and controls everything on it, but doesn’t own the server and its rights. There is also a sub – classification on this type of web hosting which is far more cheaper for dedicated plans, allowing full administrative access to the server thus, the client is responsible for the web security and maintenance of his own server. That sub – classification is called Unmanaged or Self-Managed web hosting.

11. Managed hosting service – In contrast to dedicated web host service, this type allows the client to get his or her own site but is not allowed for its full control, giving them only the privilege to manage their file and data through FTP or other remote management tools. The reason that the client is not allowed for full control so that it gives provider a confidence of quality service. Allowing clients for control may sometimes alter the server configuration and modify its protocol thus creating a huge problem. The very basic thing on this type of web hosting feature is that the user doesn’t own the server and the server is only leased to the client.

There are still a lot of web hosting features that still available on the web. All you need is to properly think and plan what web hosting feature suits your taste and will meet the demands on the web page you have in mind. But of course, you need to consider your resources, the expectant things, and the people or hosting company you need to trust or deal with in constructing you site. With this classifications of web hosting, are you now ready to start your plans in mind to make a huge step? And are you ready to choose which type of web hosting feature are you going to take? You decide.