A host needs to make a profit to continue operating. Some hosts do not properly understand the market, and may be pricing themselves too cheap. At times you will come across deals that are almost too good to be true - cheap web hosting with amazing features! While some hosts do back that up with excellent performance and service, there are things to be noted:
- Look very closely to what is written in their terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policy (AUP) documents. Some hosts try to limit the activity of the customer through these two.
- Do they offer unlimited bandwidth or space? Offering either of those two as unlimited is not possible. In the context of hosting, the term 'unlimited' is often followed by an asterisk (*), meaning that it does not uphold a dictionary definition. Ask yourself this, could you ever have enough physical disks to provide unlimited disk space? Of course not - the physical is always finite!
- The quality of bandwidth and the overall performance. Some hosts scrimp on these to give you cheaper prices. Do a self test - visit the host's website multiple times in a day to see that it remains fast loading.
- In general, Windows Hosting is more expensive than Unix/Linux hosting.
- Test out the support, and take a look over the online documentation. If you are paying less than $10 a month (which is roughly 30 cents a day), you may not receive an immediate answer after emailing the host company. Many hosts now offer flash tutorials on-line which can be an excellent way to learn how a feature works.
Just because the price is right does not mean that you will receive quality service, so you must be careful. CanHost has been in business for over 20 years, and has grown through upholding honest business practices and delivering outstanding support. We only use self-managed servers in our Canadian Facilities, and are committed to satisfying Canadian Privacy requirements (PIPEDA).
