It seems intuitive to think that a site will be only as fast as its host. Speed of download is a pretty important factor in the usability of a site, in return of users and customers, and yet most shared web hosts pray on users seeking not speed, but the biggest host size for their buck. Where does that logic fail?

An interesting tendency for the last several years has been over-sales of shared web hosts. Web hosts follow an incremental growth pattern. Because of the large expenses involved in buying and or upgrading a hosting server, and the fact that you can’t just buy “a little more of a server” to upgrade (you have to invest in the full new rack of hardware or storage space), it is intuitive to think that a host will want to make the most profit off of its initial setups for the minimal cost.

Unfortunately most of the time that leads to reduction in quality of service - long customer service waits, frequent down-times, and reduction of speed of access to the data (like that old computer in the closet with a hard-drive emulating sounds of a tractor). As a result the 5,99 host that started as a promising new home to your web presence turns your business/blog into a horse-carriage in the middle of a highway.

How do you recognize such shared hosts, its easy! Look for the “get it all at one low price” sign on their forehead. Hundreds of gigabytes of web space, thousands of anxious “review partertners” handing out large host discount coupons. When somebody is this anxious to sell shared space the price is paid by the customers who have to clamp into it with a bigger and bigger crowd. On top of the bad service, switching costs when one changes hosts are also high. It becomes much harder to move after you have set up several database driven applications, invested in internal buys, and spent so much time customizing e-mail forwarding and users that it is almost impossible to move away.

Several examples of over sellers: anhosting, godaddy, powweb, etc.

Yet, when almost all of the highly advertised hosts out there seem to follow the over-sell policy how can you avoid landing on that bandwagon? Keep several things in mind:

1. Even over-sellers seem to have fast speeds in the beginning.

2. Large space and anxious advertising ads are not a sign of long term host success.

3. Incentives to get long term contracts over 12 month have also been a sign of overselling. A good host should give you their best even if you want to try them for just a year or 6 months.

4. While looking for referrals to good hosts look for the presence of negative feedback, more than positive. (a lot of host partners have incentives to advertise for referral fees)

5. The best advertisement for good hosts are traffic-rich sites, deliberately pointing to their host in the footer of the site.

I have seen numerous referrals to MediaTemple, Kionic, and other sites by developers. And the feedback on customer service and traffic handling were also not to be underestimated. Let’s face it, you will need a lot of customer service attention during initial setups and upgrades on a new host. If the host has provided enough resources to get you going fast and with minimal hickups, that means they care more for your business than for attracting 100 other suckers for the “same low price”.

Of course quality shared hosting may cost a little more, but not too much. While over-sellers seem to hover in the $4,00 - $8,00 per month range, strong hosting companies range be between $10 and 20 for a normal sized space.

Yet some offer additional perks for the price. MediaTemple also follows a new practice of grid technology which allows a boost of bandwidth to a site during sudden surges of traffic. That can help a serious blogger in cases of being Digg-ed for that Pulitzer-prize-worthy post. Other perks are reseller host options such as Kionic’s separate user cPanels for client sites which you can charge to the client yourself.

Either way, if you mean business, a good host will give you not just a strong grounding, but also long term return on investment and saved money on headache medications.

Posted by: Diana Zink on Sunday, 9th Mar, 2008