Do you feel like you are paying too much for your web hosting service or that you do not have access to a quality customer service? Read this article to find out if you should look for another web hosting solution or not.
Is your website offline on a regular basis? If your website is not available more than a few hours every month, this is a sign that your web host is not taking good care of its servers. Every web host has to perform updates and maintenance on servers once a month, which accounts for 0.01% of downtime. If your server is unavailable more often than that, find out what is going on. Your web host might not be able to afford quality servers or might not maintain them properly. If your host cannot provide you with a good explanation for this downtime, you might be using server space that is rented by your hosting service, which is usually not a good solution.
Is the customer service available and helpful? If you have to wait more than twenty minutes to talk with a representative or if the technicians are not helpful, there might be something to worry about. Your host might be renting sever space and does not have any influence on what is going on with these servers or might not be able to afford hiring qualified technicians. You should know that a web host without a good customer service will probably not last very long. Find out for how long your host has been around; if you have subscribed to a service that does not have at least three years of existence, look for another solution.
Keep track of how much you are billed every month. Are there any additional fees you did not know about? Some web hosts will put restrictions on your use of bandwidth and charge you if you get more traffic than you are supposed to, which is a red flag. You might also be charged additional fees because of restrictions on the amount of data you are allowed to upload to your server every month. Get a detailed bill and find out where the additional fees came from. Cancel the features you do not need and look for a different solution if you find that the restrictions put on your use of storage space and bandwidth interfere with the way you run your online business.
Hundreds of new web hosting solutions appear every year and less than 5% survive for more than a year. If you are not fully satisfied with your service, it is likely that other clients will cancel their subscription too. Even if you decide to keep a service you are not fully satisfied with, expect it to close within the next two years. Make sure you have a backup solution and a short list of other services you would consider as an alternative.
Use these tips to re-assess your web hosting service and perhaps decide to cancel your subscription. Make sure you select a better solution; do not hesitate to invest more for a better web host.