Do You Make These 3 Mistakes When Buying Hosting?

We all probably had our ups and downs when choosing a hosting company. If you have ever been hunting for legitimate hosting company that satisfies your needs, you've probably got burnt. It's wild out there and scammers are just waiting to rip you off promoting the lowest quality hosting services and unreliable servers. How can you tell whether a host is legit or not? Read below:

I personally know people who can tell horror stories about their hosting experience. Usually it happens when you pick very cheap hosting packages or unreliable hosts. But in some cases, even big & reputable hosting companies can fail miserably.

Probably 2 in 3 webmasters could tell you a shocking hosting story or two. Whether it's about migrating their CMS from one host to another, or web hosts deleting their entire site and not using backup services. Sometimes a spammer can pollute the entire server and your site will go down. Yes, things like that can happen.

Frankly, there is no cure from it. It can happen to anyone. Even when using the most reliable and highly rated web hosting company. Each case is different. But at least we can take precautions when choosing web hosts. Let's look at some of the key points briefly:

* Reviews - Yes I know. Majority of them are worthless. Reviewer isn't legitimate and he/she gets compensated for each sale. But you can find some quality review sites where real human votes are counted. See if there are any comments to back up the ratings.

* Forums - A forum is a place for the community to gather and discuss the issues about particular topic. Often you can get unbiased opinion about a hosting company. In some cases, people will try promoting one or another host for quick commissions as well. So be careful.

* Whois - Look at a domain of web hosting company. Copy & paste it into the whois domain lookup service. This way you can see the location of their servers. If you see "outside US" or unknown country to you, then be careful. Some firms just try to replicate US company when in fact they are based in India or Pakistan. If you are looking for US based host, then it's not a good option for you.

These are just few tips and tricks you can do to find and review a webhost yourself. I know that it is a risky business, especially if you're starting out and cannot afford to lose money. While for some, $50/month isn't much to spend on web hosting, for others it's a monthly salary.

Be careful when choosing a web hosting company. Don't choose a host, because it's cheap. Take some steps to verify whether a company is legitimate or not. It's better to be safe, than to be sorry.