Choosing a Web Host if You`re a Reseller - Make Sure Your Host is Reliable
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I know that when you're starting out with a new business, money is tight. You will no doubt be looking for every bargain you can find. Trust me on this, your web host is not the place to go with the lowest bidder.
Oh, issues probably won't crop up right away. But after a while, you will start having slowdowns and down time. At this point your customers will start complaining to you about their websites not working properly. And you, in turn, need to contact your web host.
If you didn't do your research fully when you signed up with this web host, this is when you might get a few unpleasant surprises. You see, you might not be the only one operating on a thin financial margin. Your web host might be using IDE instead of SCSI drives, or overloading its servers with too many accounts. (To be fair, reseller web hosts are often guilty of not allowing for enough of a margin as well).
So how can you find out whether your prospective web host is reliable before this happens? One way to judge is by whether they offer a guarantee. Some hosts will guarantee 99 percent uptime, and they back that up by refunding all or part of your monthly fee if they fall below that. That gives them a real incentive to keep things running smoothly.
Another way to tell whether your prospective web host is reliable is to visit its support forums. Browse around for a while and get a feel for what kinds of complaints the company receives. You will also want to check out other forums, such as the one here at Web Hosters (http://forums.devshed.com/web-hosting-98), to see what other people think of the company.
As you will see from the thread topics, customers can and will be very blunt about whether or not you should use a particular web host! That's okay, though; you want that kind of information. Remember, that could very easily be your company that's getting flamed...and if you go with the same web hosting company that people are putting to the torch, your company might be getting raked over the coals a few months from now. If you read about the kinds of problems others have been having with the web host you're thinking about using, you can hopefully avoid them. If they're bad enough, you will know that you need to avoid that web host entirely.
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