Are All Web Hosting Providers The Same?

Nowadays there so many web hosting providers that it is almost impossible to make a quick decision as to which service would be the right fit for your hosting needs. As a matter of fact I am convinced that there is a “war” going on between many providers as you have probably seen lately. Prices being slashed at almost 50%, unlimited almost everything, e.g. disk space, bandwidth, websites, etc. A free domain name for life is already a given.

So you may ask, what is the key factor for making a decision?
Some will go straight for the price of course. Why will I pay $2 more if the other one is cheaper, right? Wrong. This is what I call a false economy. Something that in the long run can cost you more than just the small difference. You really have to look into several factors and aside from the price, which I will maybe put at the end of the list, I will first go for the following:

• Support & Technical assistance
• User interface (friendliness)
• Tutorials (preferably video)
• Upload time
• Reliability
• Technical & Customer Support
• Software
• Disk Space & Bandwidth
• and finally the price.

Now what happens if company A has exactly the same offer as company B. You maybe would decide on company A because it is cheaper. Unfortunately, cheap is not a synonym to reliability and going this route quickly could be proven wrong at the end of the day. When you are not satisfied, you will most likely change providers and at this point a lot of things can go wrong. The more strict and picky you are at the beginning, the better. When you come to a standstill, there are other ways to seek for help.

1) Do a thorough research, OR
2) Use a company that does nothing but review and rate web hosting providers (the specialist)

Enter WebHostingRating, an independent web hosting directory which features in-depth information on just about every major web hosting providers that exists. All are accompanied by unedited web hosting reviews and ratings provided by real customers. This, I think is one of the advantages of this company as the reviews given by “real” customers form part of their rating criteria. Obviously, not everything is a promise land and one minor setback of WebHostingRating is that at this time the “reviews” made by real customers are not yet very significant in quantity. Nonetheless, their overall usability is good and very professional. You should consider heading over there whenever you feel that you need more information and advice when choosing the right hosting provider for you.

This post brought to you by WebHostingRating dot com.