Every time a visitor visits your web page, the server they are accessing sends them the data they need in order to view that particular web page. This includes all images, scripts, and includes that the server needs to send to give you the complete page. The way web hosting companies measure the data that your server is sending to visitors, is called bandwidth. Bandwidth is measured in bytes, but you will see it normally given quantities of megabytes and gigabytes. A megabyte is 1,024 kilobytes (which is 1,024 bytes) and a gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes.

The reason you should be concerned about bandwidth is that it is the way web hosting companies limit the amount of resources your server can use. The web hosting company usually will let you use as much bandwidth as you want at any point, up to a predetermined limit. When you reach this limit, your web page will more than likely be shut down, or your web hosting company will try to charge you for using more bandwidth than you were supposed to.

Bandwidth is very important if you want to keep visitors coming and reading your webpage. Each time they do this, however, you will be using your allotted bandwidth. So keep an eye on how much bandwidth you are using each month, and possibly upgrade to bigger plan if you need to.

If you have been around the web hosting business for any time at all, you may have noticed that it is full of deceit and empty promises. A lot of hosting companies, like every other company out there, only have one thing on their minds. They want to sell as many of their products as possible with the lowest amount of overhead. They advertise crazy amounts of features to lure you into their program, but then cut costs where it counts the most. This results in a poor experience for most of their customers, but a lot of them do not want to deal with the hassle of switching to a new host. This is why I have come up with 10 tips that will help you have a better hosting experience.

1. Research, Research, Research!

I cannot say it enough, researching every option before you choose your host will help your hosting experience tremendously! Read every review you can find on the internet involving a particular host you are looking at. Keep in mind that it will be easier to find negative reviews than positive, because most people that are satisfied with their hosting say nothing about it. However, a lot of people that are unsatisfied like to voice their opinion. It is a good idea to read what the negative reviews are saying, just to see what kind of issues you MAY run into with this host. Just because Joe Shmoe says his site goes down every 3 hours with a particular host, doesn’t mean your site will have the same issues. If every customer felt this way, then they would not be in business anymore.
Another good idea to use before purchasing a hosting plan is to test the speed from your connection to their servers. A quick way to do this is to open a cmd prompt in windows and type: ping www.example.com. This will show you the delay (in milliseconds) that occurs between your connection and their server. You can ping their homepage, which is hopefully hosted on their servers (if not that is a serious warning sign). Or better yet, try to find one of their customer’s web pages and ping it. You can usually find some web pages to use by reading the host’s testimonial pages.
A couple of good websites for you to check while your researching for a web host are: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ and http://hostjury.com/.

2. Host your domain with a third party registrar.

Although that free domain you may get from your hosting plan may seem nice and cool, but never use it to buy your main domain. If your main web page that your spending all your time on is off of a domain that you got for free from your web host, you can easily run into problems down the road. The reason being, the host can be very reluctant to release your domain if you want to transfer it down the road, especially if your transferring because your canceling your account with that host. You never want to feel stuck with a particular host, just because they host your domain as well. The host also may employ sneaky techniques to advertise their services using your domain. They do this by entering their information into the whois records for your domain. This could also have negative effects in terms of SEO of your web page. This is why it is just a better idea to host your main domain at a third party registrar such as www.godaddy.com. However, you can use that free domain to create a less important project for yourself, or maybe register your domain in the .org or .net categories as well.

3. Don’t fall for their marketing schemes

While browsing through different hosts you may come across some hosts that offer a substantially higher amount of certain statistics, such as bandwidth, disk space, domains, or anything else, than their competitors. This may appeal to you at first, but do not fall for these schemes! More often than not they will give you crazy amounts of bandwidth, but stick you on a server will hundreds or even thousands of other customers. They can do this because the majority of their customers will only use a fraction of their allowed statistics. This can have a huge, negative impact on the performance of your web site. After all, what good is it to have all of that extra bandwidth and space you don’t need anyways, when your site is slow and your users decide they don’t want to stay because of it?

4. Find ways to cut your costs

If you did not know already, there are many different ways you can save money off of your hosting costs. A lot of the more popular hosts are willing to basically give away your first year’s worth of hosting costs to their affiliates. This means that if you use their affiliates links to find your host, those affiliates get a large percentage of your payment. HostRebater.com uses this relationships to offer you a rebate back on your payment! This can save you tons of money off your first year’s costs!
Another option to save money is to search the internet for coupons and promotional codes for a particular host. Some of these can take a large percentage off the cost, again only for your first year. Most of the time you can actually use both rebates and the coupons together cut your costs down to almost nothing! These methods are completely free and available to anyone, so why wouldn’t you use them?

5. Backup your own data

All good hosting companies will backup your data automatically from day one. It is a good idea, however, to not rely on your hosting company for backups. The only way to be sure your data is safe is to back up your data yourself. How often you do it is up to you, but you won’t regret it once you run into a problem down the road, and your host isn’t willing to help.

6. Avoid long contracts if possible

A lot of hosts will offer you discounts if you sign up for longer contracts. This may be fine and dandy if you already trust the host and plan on keeping it there for a long period of time. However, if you have never used the host before than you may find yourself locked into a contract you cannot get out of if you don’t like that host anymore.

7. Use PayPal or a one time use credit card

It is always a good idea to pay with PayPal or with a one time use credit card. In doing this you can avoid issues where your host charges you for something you were unaware of. If you just pay with your normal credit card, you may find small fees and charges from your web host.

8. Use your money back guarantee period

Almost every host out there has some kind of “money back guarantee period” for you to utilize if need be. It allows you to back out of your contract if you find out you don’t like that particular host. It only lasts for a short period of time, so cancel your account immediately if you feel like you won’t enjoy your experience for the entire term of your contract.

9. Know what your site actually needs

It is a good idea to know how much bandwidth and space your website is going to need. If you plan on just creating a blog that only a few of your friends know about, or is only going to have a couple visitors a day, don’t buy a plan with crazy amounts of bandwidth and space just because you think you could utilize it someday. Chances are you won’t for a while, so stick with the basic plan and look for better customer service and data speeds when looking for the plan that is right for you. Keep in mind that most hosts will allow you to upgrade to their more expensive plans if you need to, so even if you do eventually outgrow your limitations, you can upgrade once you hit that point. There is no use for paying for extra statistics now, when you won’t use them until later.

10. You get what you pay for!

Last but certainly not least, always remember “You get what you pay for!” This is especially true in the web hosting industry. So, if you decide to go with that plan that offers great stats at less that $10 a month, and then later find some problem that you were not expecting, don’t complain too much. Always keep in mind that if it looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. That may sound cliché, but you will save yourself from a lot of hassle if you keep this in mind.

Hopefully you will keep these ten things in mind next time you are searching for a web host. It will allow you to have a better experience overall, and to focus on your web page, not the fact that you hate your current host.

Most web hosting companies offer a variety of different plans to fit every website’s need. These plans differ in several ways; including bandwidth, disk space, domains, databases, email accounts, and anything else they think they can charge you for. But how much of this do you really need?

There is no definite answer to that question, because it depends on the website that you have, or are planning on creating. Most of the time if you’re looking at buying a new web host, you don’t already have a website with a lot of daily traffic. So for most people it doesn’t make sense to buy a web hosting plan with loads of bandwidth and disk space, because you won’t use it. Also, you don’t get a refund for the bandwidth you don’t use each month, and most likely it doesn’t roll over to the next month. So why would you want to pay for something you’re never going to use? It just doesn’t make any sense. Even if your website has a couple hundred page views a day, the amount of bandwidth you’re going to use still isn’t much compared to what most hosts give you on their basic plans.

A lot of hosts will advertise loads of bandwidth at low prices to try to get you to buy their plans. Most of the time, this is a sign that they are putting way too many websites on one server. This means that your site is going to be slower during peak hours if you do actually use most of that bandwidth. The reason they can advertise more bandwidth than their competitors, is that they expect most people to only use a fraction of that bandwidth. They use this to oversell what they can actually handle, and they get more customers while doing it. This will only create more problems for you and your website down the road, so try to avoid falling for traps like this. Chances are you don’t need a whole lot of bandwidth anyway, so look for different features when deciding on your host. Things such as customer support, reliability, and data speeds are far more important.

Of course everything just mentioned doesn’t apply if you plan on hosting large images, videos, or file downloads on your hosting account. These kinds of things do need a lot of bandwidth, so pick a plan that will allow you to expand and grow without any problems. Keep in mind however, that most hosts allow you to upgrade your plan at any time, so it is a good idea to start with something low and cheap, then upgrade as your website grows. If you do plan on hosting large files and you think you need a lot of bandwidth, make sure the host you choose not only allows lots of bandwidth, but also maintains high standards in customer support, reliability, and data speed. All of that bandwidth won’t matter if your site is down frequently or it is slow during peak hours. This will drive your visitors away, which is the opposite of what you want. A good way to know if the host you’re looking at keeps these high standards is to read reviews of what their customer think. It is always a good idea to do as much research as you can before choosing a host. This will make sure you have the best web hosting experience as you can.

I hope you keep all of these things in mind when you are shopping for a new web host. All of those flashy plans with crazy amounts of bandwidth are usually too good to be true. There is almost always some catch, whether it is their speed, reliability, customer service, or some other problem that you don’t want. It is best to stick with the web hosts that have highest standards in everything they offer, even if they don’t offer you as much as bandwidth or other stats that some other hosts offer. This will enhance your web design experience and allow you to grow your website as fast as you want it to.

        If you have been in the market for a new web host lately, you may have realized that web hosting is very expensive. This is especially true if your web page isn’t making any money yet to help offset some of the costs of owning it. Not only do you have to buy your domain and renew it every year, you also have to have a place to host it. If you want a decent web host that offers great options, reliability, speed, and service you’re going to have to spend the cash to get it. There are, however, many different options available to you that can help you save money off the first year of your hosting. This will help you get your site off the ground, and allow you to develop it without worrying about the financial side of web design as much. This also maximizes any profit you make off your website, as it will help lower your overhead costs.

        One of your best options for saving money off your web hosting costs is to use a rebate program. Websites such as HostRebater offer you cash back off your hosting costs. The only catch is you have to use their links when you sign up for the host. Some of the rebates can be up to 90% off the first year of hosting, so this can save you tons of money. The reason they can do this is they get money for referring you to that host (meaning you clicked on their link to that host). They then give you back a percentage of that money as your rebate. It is extremely easy to use, as they provide information about many of the top web hosting companies. Once you have found the web host you want to use, just click the link listed there on HostRebater, then sign up for your favorite hosting plan. You will receive your rebate typically within 90 days (usually just 2 weeks after your 30 day money back guarantee period). It really is that simple!

        Another way you can save some money is by using coupon codes. A quick Google search can offer you several coupon codes, if the web host you want is offering them. Also these can sometimes be used at the same time as a rebate from HostRebater, which can save you even more money! In some cases this can eliminate ALL of your hosting costs for the first year! HostRebater also lists which coupons can be used with their rebates, which can help you make your decision much easier. Coupon codes are also instant, meaning that you don’t have to wait like you do with a rebate. Some hosting companies also offer coupon codes to increase your options on your hosting plan. This can include more bandwidth, disk space, domains, or many other statistics. It is a good idea to keep these in mind while you are shopping for the right host.

        Those are two great ways to save money on your web hosting costs. They are free and easy to use, so there is no reason not to use them. There is no catch other than you may have to wait 90 days to get your money back. This shouldn’t matter though, because it truly is free money. Go try these methods right now so you can get back to worrying about making that web site!