Inexpensive Web Hosting and Other Stupid Things
Web hosting services are so common now it seems like everyone has one. Not meaning this is a wrong way, trust me, competition is something I truly believe in. But, it seems there are people who think that they don’t need to know anything about developing and maintaining a business, to start their own web hosting business.
Those I find most surprising are those that offer hosting services at crazy prices. There are web hosting offers from people for $1 a year. Yes, you read right, one dollar for an entire year of service. With prices in the range of $60 to $100 per year for the minimum service, one would think this is a great deal but you must really analyze it first.
Let’s do some simple calculations. Lets say a provider gets 1,000 clients, a reasonable number for a small web hosting business. If this provider sells his services at $1 each, then he will have the fabulous amount of $1,000 in a year. Do you think that he will be able to offer quality services, support and upgrades at this amount? I am hard pressed to think he will have enough for food alone!
Some say a good business begins with a great amount of clients. Only because I’m feeling good about my life today will we continue using this example. Just think about a provider getting up to or over 10,000 customers – an extremely motivated goal! You receive $10,000 dollars in income! With this type of income do you think a business will last a year? Imagine how much this would cost if there waas 10,000 clients. The cost of things such as rent and power could eliminate your meager income.
It is amazing, of course, how the mind searches for and creates solutions. Customers who purchase these services compromise that they get the deal of the year, not making a difference if the company goes out of business the following year, which is very likely. They already acquired the service pratically for free. And I ask to you again, is this true?
If your provider suddenly goes out of business, you will no longer have access to your services, and you will lose your email addresses and your web site. Even if you have your domain registered with another provider, you will not be able to get a new service for at least a couple of days in the best case scenario. That’s only if you didn’t make the mistake of getting your domain name with the same provider.
In that case, you may even lose your domain name and will have to get a new one. Imagine the time wasted just notifying all your clients about your new email address. What if you lost important emails and documents too? Do you think this is worth the risk?
When purchasing your next web hosting service, take into consideration the support services, the quickness in answering your emails as well as phone calls and how long the owner has been in this market. We have all heard many time that if it sounds too good to be true it usually is, then you may as well start looking elsewhere.
But if you insist on getting one of these services for a dollar, we will be happy to help you when your provider disappears, just let’s hope the damage isn’t too bad.
Filed under: Ecommerce