Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

November 11, 2010

The Disadvantages of Cheap Hosting

Cheap web hosting is perhaps one of the most advertised and overrated services available on the internet. Hosting plans are available in a vast array of types, including VPS, shared, eCommerce, and dedicated hosting. Of these types only two of them can be considered cheap  - VPS and shared, with shared hosting being the cheapest.

There are literally thousands of articles online praising the advantages of cheap hosting, which is it not surprising because it is a profit-driven industry that relies on a constant influx of new customers. However, a lot of people fail to address some of the major disadvantages of cheap web hosting, which are often not discovered until the disadvantages have an impact on the webmasters operations. The following information discusses the commonly overlooked disadvantages of cheap web hosting.

Lack of Reliability

Hosting companies love to tout the guarantee of “99 percent uptime” and “superb support.” Unfortunately, many people don't realize that these are simply marketing gimmicks, and in most cases, cheap hosting types like shared hosting are very unreliable in terms of site down time. This is because you're forced to share a web server with hundreds of other web sites that can affect the performance of the server at any given point in time.

When a traffic surge occurs the amount of bandwidth available to your site can be greatly reduced, causing slow page loading times and even complete server crashes. Shared hosting plans are also much more susceptible to distributed denial of service attacks, which are security relapses that result form hackers sending massive amounts of fake traffic to a single site on the server, thereby shutting down the entire server and all of the sites on it.

Lack of Server Resources

Aside from the sheer lack of reliability, cheap hosting plans also greatly limit your site's ability to perform optimally, as well as your ability to maximize the size of the site and its visitor base. Every hosting plan comes with a certain amount of bandwidth and data storage space, which collectively is  known as the “server resources”. Without enough bandwidth the loading times of all of your pages will suffer, causing many people to leave your site. Without enough data storage you won't be able to update the site frequently because you'll find yourself running out of space. If you are serious about being successful in your online endeavors then it is strongly recommended that you avoid cheap web hosting plans.

Lower Support Priority

Although most web hosting companies will claim to offer the same level of support to all of their customers, the truth is that web hosting is a profit-driven industry, and the loyalty of all web hosting companies lies within the hands of their highest paying customers. Thus, it is a safe bet to assume that, when the lines are busy and the support staff is overloaded with calls, the people holding dedicated hosting plans will receive support before those with shared hosting plans.

While this is not always the case, and some of the larger hosting companies do adhere to honest support protocols, the vast majority of the time, companies that ask for number prompts to indicate what kind of plan you have will be placing you on a priority list based on your plan type. If you call you hosting support and they ask you to indicate what kind of hosting plan you have by pressing an number, there is a good chance that they are utilizing this prioritizing system.

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