Web Hosting Warning Signs
Sure, breaking up is hard to do. But when it comes to divorcing your web hosting provider, learning the early warning signs can mean the difference between a friendly parting of ways and a nasty break-up. This article will detail some of the early warning signs I've noticed that often indicate that your web hosting company isn't up to snuff.
1. Corporate Takeovers: Though not always a good and reliable indicator of bad things to come, it does behoove you to do some research on the new owners if your account is shuffled around in a merger or acquisition. I've added the parent corporation name and DBA of my hosting company to a custom Google News RSS feed and rolled it into my aggregator. That way, I'm likely to get a heads-up in the form of a press release if they get acquired. Also, try to find out when your site will be migrated to its new home (if at all). Make sure you're keeping tabs on uptime during any migrations.
2. Poor Technical Support: This should be somewhat self-explanatory, but let me elaborate just a bit. In the course of setting up a new website, I will often have a question or request for tech support. Usually this involves setting up DB users or permissions of some kind. Sometimes, I will get a response that indicates that a particular representative just doesn't understand the issue. Less frequently, I will get an answer that is just completely fabricated. If this happens with more than one representative, it's time to start looking elsewhere. I want support people who know more than I do, not those who pretend to.
3. Poor Communications: It could be from a customer support person, a sales rep, tech support, or even the hosting site itself. If I have a question and I'm not getting answers, my boots are made for walking. For example, let's say there was an instance of downtime. I want to know why and when it will be back up. Satisfactory answers to these questions are mandatory.
4. Shifting the Blame: My site goes down. I ask why. Hosting company says it's because of a script on my site, but can't identify which script nor explain how it caused a problem. Game over.
5. Upselling: Shifting the blame is often accompanied by upselling, in which case you need to look at all the other options available from different providers before committing to a plan increase. Hosting providers are notorious for luring you in with an extremely cheap plan, then selling you on an increased space/bandwidth plan that isn't in any way competitive. Most people don't do any research at this point, which makes for fatter margins for your host. If you get an upsell call, your host had better be well prepared to justify both your personal need and the pricing in a competitive marketplace.
6. Speed: The speed of a webhost is one of those things that is difficult to measure in advance by its very nature. In my experience, if your site seems slow to you then it probably is slow for everyone else. If you experience speed issues, talk to your host about it. They should be ready, willing, and able to investigate such a complaint, and you shouldn't have to pay an outside source to verify that your site is running slowly. One thing that may help is putting up a test page of a fixed byte size and comparing that to an identical page hosted elsewhere.
7. The Sniff Test: No, gentlemen, I'm not referring to your method for selecting reasonably clean underwear in the morning, I'm talking about good old intuition. If there's anything that seems even slightly fishy about your web host, start looking elsewhere. Web masters aren't lawyers and free enterprise isn't a courtroom. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. If it doesn't smell right, move on.
In summation, web hosting is a fiercely competitive marketplace. You should never be afraid of switching hosting providers when there's this much competition in the space. Always remember that someone else out there wants your money and is prepared to pony up in quality of service to get it.
Finding a good web host is tricky. For most webmasters, it takes several attempts and a few failures. And since everyone's needs are different, it's not always easy to rely on the experience of others. That's the golden rule of hosting reviews: You should never let one or two bad reviews stop you from trying a host that otherwise seems to suit your needs perfectly, but you should always share your experiences – good and bad - with other webmasters.
Sure, breaking up is hard to do. But when it comes to divorcing your web hosting provider, learning the early warning signs can mean the difference between a friendly parting of ways and a nasty break-up. This article will detail some of the early warning signs I've noticed that often indicate that your web hosting company isn't up to snuff.
1. Corporate Takeovers: Though not always a good and reliable indicator of bad things to come, it does behoove you to do some research on the new owners if your account is shuffled around in a merger or acquisition. I've added the parent corporation name and DBA of my hosting company to a custom Google News RSS feed and rolled it into my aggregator. That way, I'm likely to get a heads-up in the form of a press release if they get acquired. Also, try to find out when your site will be migrated to its new home (if at all). Make sure you're keeping tabs on uptime during any migrations.
2. Poor Technical Support: This should be somewhat self-explanatory, but let me elaborate just a bit. In the course of setting up a new website, I will often have a question or request for tech support. Usually this involves setting up DB users or permissions of some kind. Sometimes, I will get a response that indicates that a particular representative just doesn't understand the issue. Less frequently, I will get an answer that is just completely fabricated. If this happens with more than one representative, it's time to start looking elsewhere. I want support people who know more than I do, not those who pretend to.
3. Poor Communications: It could be from a customer support person, a sales rep, tech support, or even the hosting site itself. If I have a question and I'm not getting answers, my boots are made for walking. For example, let's say there was an instance of downtime. I want to know why and when it will be back up. Satisfactory answers to these questions are mandatory.
4. Shifting the Blame: My site goes down. I ask why. Hosting company says it's because of a script on my site, but can't identify which script nor explain how it caused a problem. Game over.
5. Upselling: Shifting the blame is often accompanied by upselling, in which case you need to look at all the other options available from different providers before committing to a plan increase. Hosting providers are notorious for luring you in with an extremely cheap plan, then selling you on an increased space/bandwidth plan that isn't in any way competitive. Most people don't do any research at this point, which makes for fatter margins for your host. If you get an upsell call, your host had better be well prepared to justify both your personal need and the pricing in a competitive marketplace.
6. Speed: The speed of a webhost is one of those things that is difficult to measure in advance by its very nature. In my experience, if your site seems slow to you then it probably is slow for everyone else. If you experience speed issues, talk to your host about it. They should be ready, willing, and able to investigate such a complaint, and you shouldn't have to pay an outside source to verify that your site is running slowly. One thing that may help is putting up a test page of a fixed byte size and comparing that to an identical page hosted elsewhere.
7. The Sniff Test: No, gentlemen, I'm not referring to your method for selecting reasonably clean underwear in the morning, I'm talking about good old intuition. If there's anything that seems even slightly fishy about your web host, start looking elsewhere. Web masters aren't lawyers and free enterprise isn't a courtroom. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. If it doesn't smell right, move on.
In summation, web hosting is a fiercely competitive marketplace. You should never be afraid of switching hosting providers when there's this much competition in the space. Always remember that someone else out there wants your money and is prepared to pony up in quality of service to get it.
Finding a good web host is tricky. For most webmasters, it takes several attempts and a few failures. And since everyone's needs are different, it's not always easy to rely on the experience of others. That's the golden rule of hosting reviews: You should never let one or two bad reviews stop you from trying a host that otherwise seems to suit your needs perfectly, but you should always share your experiences – good and bad - with other webmasters.
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