Sunday, November 3, 2013

10 Sneaky Tricks of Cheap Web Hosting Companies

If you thought all those billions of web pages are hosted on
expensive and full service web hosting companies, you need to
cross check your information sources again. Of course, there are
free or cheap web hosting companies that provide basic features
good enough for simple html pages. You can take the example of
some blog sites for these. But cheap (as cheap as $1.99 a month)
web hosting service is different as they claim to provide more than
the basic features which require huge infrastructures and funds to
maintain and remain in the business. How do cheap web hosting
companies attract business and what are their tricks?Trick Number 1: The 24/7 toll-free number that a cheap web
hosting company will advertise on their website. Most of these
rarely work and those that do work seem to work only Monday to
Friday. They are there mainly to create a false impression. What
will you do on the weekend or after hours? You need a web
hosting company that provides real support.Trick Number 2: E-mail contacts given, which give you a very nicely
worded (auto responder) response, requesting you to be patient
while promising that an appropriate web hosting executive is
handling your query. Don't you want to talk to a real person at
some point? Email messages could go on forever with no
resolution in sight. Your time, in short supply, is valuable.Trick Number 3: Unlimited emails in POP3 and SMTP which hardly
give any value to a small webmaster but can have a big impact on
your decision making. Cheap web hosting companies cannot
provide good email service. Yet, you need good email service so
that you can stay in contact with your customers. (better
service=more customers=more sales)Trick Number 4: Cheap web hosting companies often make
promises of free downloads worth thousands of dollars. You can
check this offer only after you subscribe to their service. You
should be able to check out all aspects of an offer before making a
commitment, thus saving you valuable time and money.Trick Number 5: The lure of freebies like all platform database
support, preinstalled server side scripts, site builders, templates
and SSL & ecommerce tools. In actuality, if these products are
provided by cheap web hosting companies, they are very limited.
Why limit your business from the start? You need a web hosting
company that will give you the tools you need to be successful
right out of the gate!Trick Number 6: Domain registrars and sister companies of cheap
web hosting companies don't allow editing DNS zone files and MX
records. Registrars talk about "name server management" when
they actually mean the exact opposite resulting in forced hosting
with them. You should be able to choose the services that you
want for your business. After all, who knows your business better
than you? Locking yourself in with a cheap web hosting company
forces you to do business their way. Don't do it!Trick Number 7: Artificially populating user forums is another way of
promoting their cheap web hosting business. Cheap web hosting
companies do this so you will think they have tons of satisfied
users. Really, you should rely on referrals to check out a web
hosting company's services. This is the only real way to be sure
you'll get the service you deserve.
Trick Number 8: Display of an unknown or little known award and
trying to impress you that they provide award winning service. Do
awards mean anything anymore these days? Better to rely on
actual comments from real customers.Trick Number 9: Offering free integration of shopping carts and
payment gateways. Cheap web hosting companies do this
because they know that for many online businesses having access
to an online payment tool is a must. What you actually get is
PayPal, which is well known, and is not their product at all. Why
would you trust a web hosting company that would do this?Trick Number 10: Free Marketing support. Of course they do it but
what they market vigorously is their site where your name might
be mentioned. Cheap web hosting companies will not do more
than this. In fact, they cannot. Are you paying for marketing your
business? Or theirs?Being on the lookout for tricks such as these will keep you from
falling into the trap of thinking that cheap web hosting is good.
You can make a better choice for your business. You need a web
hosting company that provides real, complete services that help
improve your business. Do you want your business to be just a
number?Remember the old adage, "you get what you pay for".