Problems and Solutions: Considerations when Purchasing Hosting

We have compiled a list of things to consider if you are thinking about purchasing web hosting.  These are entered in no particular order of priority.

• Before purchasing a cheap domain name and web hosting, ensure that the package you are signing up for includes SQL databases. Check how many databases are included with your package and establish how many your site will require.
• Shared hosting often has limits on the number of emails available on each package, especially with cheap hosting. This can be troublesome for many new web-based businesses. The host can usually offer additional emails at a small cost. In some cases, adding emails will require an upgrade to a larger hosting package.
• Many hosts offer unlimited email addresses, as this is a very small cost for them. If you are looking for a much more extensive email solution, it might be the right time to consider a dedicated mail server.
• There are a lot of things that one may need root access for and completely backing up your hosting is one of them. Typically, the best way to get around this would be to call your hosts. Many hosts now provide data backup services for no cost or minimal costs.  It is hard to imagine a shared host that would offer any of his or her customers root access to the servers. This is an understandable and acceptable limitation. Find out if your host offers backup/restore services and what file format they prefer.
• If you’re site is offline, it can harm your business, your reputation, and your finances. Troubleshooting should start immediately and include: verifying DNS settings, checking with cheap domain name and web hosting company to make sure server is up, checking your file structure to make sure it is still present. Unscheduled maintenance and unexpected outages can bring your site offline. It is best to check with the host.
• Always choose an affordable web hosting company who offers an uptime guarantee. Keep in mind, a 100% uptime guarantee is not possible, but 99.9% uptime guarantees are not only possible but quite common. These companies backup their uptime with their money, meaning if your site is down excessively, you do not pay.  This is one of the very unfortunate problems with shared hosting. You hold no authority over those you share the IP address with. Unfortunately, if those people spam, you will be flagged as spam in most cases as well. There are many free sites that maintain blacklists and you may petition that your IP is removed from these lists.
• Ask your budget hosting company for a list of the domains that are on the server with you. There is no guarantee that they will provide this information to you, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Request the IP address of your server assignment before you purchase, and check it against blacklist databases.
• Most of the time, this is a coding problem, i.e., missing meta tags. However, in some cases, frequent downtime can lead to your site not being indexed. For example, if your site is down at 4AM every night for 1 hour, which just so happens to be the same time Google runs their indexing, then you will be flagged as nonexistent. In most cases, this can be resolved via a bit of code tweaking and an uptime monitoring system.
• Be sure your host offers an uptime guarantee so you do not consistently have downtime. Shop around for website status monitoring systems so that you may be contacted should your site go down unexpectedly.
• Just as shared hosting servers do not allow you to choose server properties, they also do not allow you to modify control panel settings. For example, if your control panel theme is lime-green and has no access to logging tools, you are unable to change this. For feature enabling or control panel tweaking, you must contact your host.
• Ensure that your host offers all the features you require before purchasing. There are many things in a control panel that can vary from host to host. Make no assumptions and double check so that your site runs in the manner you designed it. Should you require further setting customization, it might be more efficient to look into a dedicated server.
• With shared hosting, one can not run maintenance at certain times. Should your server be on the east coast and maintenance is run at 2AM server time, it might still be a prime shopping hour for your customers on the west coast. Ask your host for a maintenance schedule so you may post notices to your visitors.
• Prior to buying into a hosting plan, ask the hosting provider for a list of maintenance times and compare those to the time at which your site sees the most visitors.
• Because shared servers also share a postman, mail can be delayed based on flooding or just a slow connection. If you are experiencing this problem, contact your cheap business web hosting company and request that the mail be redirected or your mx records be moved to an alternative server.
• Since one cannot control the other users on a shared host, it is difficult to determine the expected mail usage. It might be helpful to ask future cheap business web hosting companies for the domain names of those hosted on your server. Then, email the administrators of those domains, inquiring about the mail speed.
• If your cheap business web hosting company is using modified ports that conflict with third-party programs, there are two options. You may request that the host change the ports. However, the affordable web hosting company probably did this for a specific reason, so the easiest way to resolve this issue would be to change the port specification in the third-party program. Most open-source or third party software has support forums that can help with these topics.
• In order to prevent this issue down the road, contact your cheap business web hosting company prior to purchasing to question the ports. This information is not common and for security reasons is not often available to the public. However, by contacting the sales or technical support departments, you should be able to investigate whether the ports your software requires are open.
• Installing an encryption key involves acquiring access to a few server tools. Unfortunately, many hosts will disable this access for their shared servers. However, this is a VERY common request and very common issue, so your host should have no problem assisting you in generating an encryption key. Most of the time, this should be no additional cost.
• Check with your cheap business web hosting company prior to purchasing about their process in dealing with encryption keys. Ask who their preferred vendors are and what the process is for your shared hosting account.
• In general, a security change will not affect a simple site. If you have a complex site or are using third-party software, unannounced security changes could lead to error messages. If this occurs, ask your cheap business web hosting company what is the work around for said change so you may code it into your webpage.
• It is not outlandish to request notification of security changes BEFORE they happen on your server. A little bit advanced notice can save you countless man hours of troubleshooting. Check with your host to see if this is a service they offer.
• Shared hosting accounts do not offer remote desktop. It is quite easy and convenient to use a dedicated server as your “computer-away-from-home” when you remote desktop into it. There is no workaround for this issue other than purchasing a dedicated server.
• If you foresee a strong need for remote desktop access to your server in the future, you might want to investigate any virtual hosts that allow for this. As of this writing, it is not a common offering, but it is possible for the future. Otherwise, it is best to look into a dedicated server.
• One can also not run normal desktop applications on a shared hosting account. Should you like to run desktop applications (bulk mailers, OpenOffice, etc.) on a server, you should look into dedicated hosting.
• Shared servers cannot allocate the resources to allow their users to run whatever they’d like. If you need to run external programs on your server, consider purchasing a dedicated server.
• Similar to the inability to remote desktop or run programs, one cannot host game servers on a shared server. However, there are many companies that offer gaming servers (though they are dedicated, they come at a lesser cost) specifically. There is no workaround for this issue.
• If you are seeking a gaming server, a shared host is not the path you should take. Investigate gaming servers specifically, before you just look at general dedicated servers. On a dedicated server, you will have to install your own software. Many popular games have pre-configured servers.
• Should your site require a specific operating system/platform and your host has you on the incorrect server, a transfer can be pretty simple. Most hosts have several types of servers on all different platforms. A transfer should only take a few minutes and can be virtually free of downtime. Occasionally, there is a fee for such a transfer.
• Most hosts will offer a choice of operating system in the purchase flow. Choose the operating system that best meets the needs of your site.
• If you are sending out massive amounts of email, you might find your host restricts the mail server access. Often, the host will not lift these restrictions, even for an additional charge. The best option would be to move to a dedicated server or seek out a company that does bulk mailing.