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The 5 Myths of Website Hosting

 

1 -Where I host my website will not affect my SEO Ranking


It might. SEO (search engine optimization) depends on several factors Including:

Fast Website loading speed -your ranking may be lowered by Google if your website loads too slow or is down often.  Slow loading will also frustrate a user thereby increase your bounce rate, all negative factors on SEO ranking.

Security – A secure website is a safe website.  Does your provider offer installed SSL certificates?  For SEO ranking a good host will offer SSL and in addition backup your data for quick recovery if anything goes wrong.

High uptime, ideally 99.99% is great. And add a Dedicated IP address for your website, even better.

And if you’re on shared services, like the server farms that are still being used in some places, loading, may be slowed as well.

2-My website can be any size because I got Unlimited

If you think about it, there’s really no such thing as unlimited.  You will reach the end.  When a host is referring to their hosting plans as unlimited, they should be saying “you can use our bandwidth as much as you need without limits” but there will be a price to pay.


All host contracts generally cover the concept of unlimited with restrictions in the Terms and Conditions you agreed to, including limited resources like disk space, email accounts and transfer size.   In reality, these hosting companies are banking on that fact that you will never need as much resources as they claim to give you for free.  If you are one of those people who store thousands of MP3 files and download AIVs by the disk full prepare to pay.  For example on Linux, that limit is normally charged by the number of Inodes you use. (For example: an online store may use more space than realized, each item is stored within the database, sometimes multiple times. A pair of running shoes would be stored as a product for each size they offer as well as color, material and so on)

Cloud hosting could become very expensive, as you pay for what you use.  

3-Technical support, it’s rare to talk to someone on the phone or in text, all support is email, user groups.


On a cloud?  If your hosting with GOOGLE, AWS or another Cloud Provider: there is free support for BILLING and SALES only.  Other than that, you need a support contract/plan. 

Traditional hosts may or may not offer a support contract, chat, live support, email support, text support and so on.   Research all the options on the table so you know ahead of time what to expect if you need assistance.

4-All hosting reviews are accurate.

Any search engine will find several “Web Hosting Reviews”.  These reviews have all sorts of recommendations.  There could be a mixture of good and bad reviews, some real some not.  And like the telephone companies of long ago, some hosting companies belong to the same entity.  For example: Hostgator, BlueHost, HostMonster, Domain.com and several others are all owned by (as of this writing) Endurance International Group.  So naturally a review between hosting companies, that maybe done in incognito by endurance for example, will put one of their companies on top. 

And some even pay for good review. 

 What does this tell you?  Do your own research.

5-Free is the best option

You can find several companies on the internet willing to host your website for free.  But nothing in life is really free; you will discover free eventually comes with a cost.  For example:

If you did not invest in a domain name, deciding to host under an extension of your hosting company, your website will be impossible to find on search engines.  Also, using an extension for your website address like dwli.net.mywebsite.com looks unprofessional

You may be charged for additional services, such as email, FTP access, website transfer and image hosting. 

You probably don’t own the content, moving to another provider may be impossible, or you may have to hire a professional to export your data especially if they use proprietary software like GoDaddy.

The host may run advertisements on the bottom of your website or an unwanted popup.

If they decide to turn off your service, they will without notice.  If they go out of business, you will lose all your data.


Your information, email address, name, and so forth is not private.  Many free website hosting companies sell this information as stated in their contract or Terms and Conditions.

The storage space may be unlimited, but the small print in the Terms and Conditions say otherwise.

There may be no support, no backups, no domain email or email forwarding.  There may be restrictions on the number of files you can upload, the customization of your template, the use of HTML, and other tools you may need

There is a lot of misinformation out there.  Even reviews are faked.  Do your research, email those who are listed as a customer on their website for their opinion.  Ask questions. Digital Web Leprechauns, a WordPress design and hosting company has an excellent reputation.  Feel free to contact any of our customers for a referral.

New!  $100 DIY all-inclusive WordPress templates.  See details.

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