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In the past 9 years, I have had the pleasure of working with a good number of web hosts. I can tell you from experience that no single web hosting partner that I have worked with has been perfect. But there is no question some hosting companies are better than the others. In this day and age, it is very difficult to identify fake reviews and people who recommend hosting services just to get an affiliate check. Many folks end up with terrible hosts by believing the reviews they read online. If you have ended up in that situation, you are not out of luck. There are ways to handle that.

Here are 6 ways to properly handle your relationship with your web host:

• don’t be unreasonable: before blaming your web host for everything, you first have to understand that no web hosting service is perfect. Every single web host I have been on has had downtimes. Things break from time to time. If you can’t handle rare downtimes, you are going to have a difficult time finding a partner that meets your expectations.
• try contacting the customer service: before making rash decisions, you should contact your hosting partner’s customer service to find out what is causing your server to be down. In many cases, you may be able to solve the issues your account is experiencing without having to make major moves.
• use social media channels: in some cases, you may not hear back from your hosting partner even after multiple emails. You should check out your hosting partner’s Twitter and Facebook pages and contact its representatives on those sites.
• always have a backup plan: you should always have all your files backed up in multiple offsite locations to be able to deal with disasters properly. If your site is down for days and you can’t access your databases, you can rely on your backups to move your site to a new host quickly.
• give your host a second chance: I am always for giving businesses a second chance, especially if they have proven themselves in the past. Those of you who have been following this blog have probably seen some of my rants on my current web host. One does not part ways with a company that has delivered years of great service for just a couple of bad weeks (as long as that does not become a trend).
• move on quickly if you must: some people get too attached to the businesses they are working with or feel too lazy about moving their sites to a new host. Let’s face it. Moving an established business to a new host can take a bit of time. But if your web host is terrible, you have no choice. Don’t waste your time overthinking it. If your web host has become unreliable, run as fast as you can.

No web host is perfect. No matter how much money you are paying for your hosting service each month, you may have to deal with occasional server outages. When that becomes a trend, you should move on.

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Most bloggers start their journey in this business with a shared hosting partner. Shared web hosting may work for you when you are getting a couple of thousands of visitors to your site a month. As soon as your traffic picks up, you are going to have trouble keeping your site up and running in a speedy fashion. When it comes to hosting, you do get what you pay for. Dedicated hosting can be the answer to your prayers in those situations. The right dedicated server can breathe new life to your websites and keep them up running faster.

Many folks who recommend dedicated hosting services do not explain some of the issues that webmasters could face signing up for them. Dedicated hosts3 are not perfect after all. Here are 5 things “they” don’t tell you about dedicated servers:

• you may have to be technical: a lot of bloggers do not know a whole lot about what it takes to run a server. That may be acceptable when you are hosted on a shared server with customer support. Unmanaged dedicated servers do not provide you with too much help setting up your server. In other words, you could be on your own with these types of servers. Even some managed services don’t cover everything. It is always better to know these facts before signing up.
• customer support may be limited: most web hosts assume that their dedicated server customers are advanced users. As such, they do not have the proper customer service team in place to help the newbies wanting to host their websites on a dedicated machine. You should always do your research to find out how far your hosting partner would be willing to go to help you get out of trouble.
• there will be complications: just because your site will be hosted on a dedicated server does not mean it won’t face any issues. On the contrary, things usually do go wrong in your first few months on your dedicated host. It is going to be a learning experience. Don’t let minor setbacks discourage you.
• server optimization is not always covered: when you are on a shared host, you can expect your partner to update your server and even protect it against hack attacks. On a dedicated host, you may be on your own. Make sure you have the resources to handle the extra work load.
• dedicated server is not cloud hosting: cloud hosting solutions are highly popular these days. They are very scalable and give large websites access to more resources on-demand. You won’t have that option on a dedicated host. Essentially, if you have only 2 GB RAM on your dedicated host and you run out of it, you won’t have an easy way to boost your RAM for a short period of time.

Dedicated hosting is not without its issues. It may sound cool when you run it in your head. But in real life, dedicated hosting can cause your business trouble. Make sure you know all the facts to avoid getting burned.

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In a perfect world, bloggers would get to focus all their time on their blogs without having to worry about hack attacks and hosting service outages. Unfortunately, that only happens in the dream world. In reality, lots of things can go wrong for bloggers on a daily basis. If your blog is having issues (major or minor), the last thing you want to do is pretend they didn’t happen. Your loyal visitors would not appreciate such an approach. There is a right way and wrong way to tackle this. Here are 5 ways you can make sure you go with the right approach addressing your blog’s issues:

• Provide updates: if your website is down for hours, don’t just sit around and pray to God. There are better ways to use your time. You should at least use your other outposts to provide an update on your site’s situation to your loyal readers. They will understand it if you are honest with them. Nobody likes to experience any downtime but these things happen. Don’t panic. Just act professionally and respect your visitors’ loyalty.
• Don’t ignore complaints: in a perfect world, people would just understand that no website can stay up forever. Even large companies experience some downtime from time to time (that includes Amazon too). When someone complains about your website on Twitter or other sites, don’t get defensive. Address the situation at hand without attacking others or responding to their attacks.
• Use other means to get your content out: so your blog may be down. You still have Facebook, your newsletter, Tumblr, and other channels to communicate with your visitors. Your world should not need to stop even if your site is down for a couple of days (not that it would be ideal).
• Explain your story: once you are done with your site’s issues, take time to explain to your visitors what has happened. You may think they won’t care, but a lot of them do. At least, they’ll know that you are serious about your business and will do everything you can to avoid those issues from surfacing in the future.
• Give away stuff: nothing can make your visitors forget about your blog outage than a nice gift. You can pull this off with a giveaway. Another way to do this is by offering your visitors, let’s say, a free week of your premium service.

No website is perfect. Every blogger will have to deal with major business headaches from time to time. The last thing you want to do as a blogger is try to hide your blog’s problems or ignore your loyal visitors. That’s just not a smart approach.

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Choosing the right web host for your blog is a big step. Go with the wrong web host, and you are going to regret your move for a very long time. I have been lucky with my web hosts. DreamHost has had its up and downs, but it has one of the best support teams around, making it easy to forgive some of its shortcomings. VPS.net has an amazing reputation and backs it all up with its service. Many new bloggers tend to go with the first web host they find online. Just because a company has a popular brand or can create commercials with half naked ladies does not mean they can keep your website up and running 24/7. Doing your research beforehand goes a long away towards helping you pick a host that won’t put your business in trouble in the long run.

You should not cut any corners when picking a web host. It does not matter what a company has done in the past couple of months. You should look at web hosts’ track records over the long run to find out how they treat their customers, what type of service they offer, and whether they are only into nickeling and diming their customers. Here are 5 ways you can go about doing your research:

• check Twitter: Twitter is one of the best places to find out about issues you may have to deal with a web host. Just search the name of the web host you are planning to work with to see whether someone’s complaining and how your future partner is handling those complaints. If your web host does not have a Twitter account, that is not a good sign.
• search for complaints: there are plenty of complaint sites that are filled with people who are sharing their bad experiences with the world. Going through these websites can give you an idea whether your hosting candidates are worth working with.
• don’t forget negative keywords: works such as “scam” and “sucks” are great wild-cards to use on Google and Bing to figure out who’s been complaining about the web hosts you are planning to work with. Not all these “attack pieces” are accurate but they are worth studying.
• be annoying with customer service: you want to know how a web host will treat you once you pay up? Be somewhat annoying with its customer service. Don’t insult or be mean . At the same time, make sure you ask for as many things as possible from the company’s representatives to gauge their reaction. If they are not willing to help out a potential customer, will they help you once you are a customer?
• don’t forget forums: forums are another great source of information about web hosts. You should check official forums (support forums for the company you want to work with) as well as web hosting industry forums. Some companies do keep their forums closed to the public. You may still be able to reach the appropriate threads in those forums using search engines.

Choosing a web host is a big decision for your blog. While you may want to get started with your blog as soon as possible, going with a web host you are not absolutely confident about will come back to bite you in the end. That’s a guarantee.

Whether you are a professional blogger or have just started with your own blog, you have probably had to deal with hosting issues in the past. Web Hosting is one of those tricky issues that can determine the success or failure of your site. You can work on your content all day, but if your website is down when your visitors pay you a visit, you are not going to get too much value out of your web host. Unfortunately, choosing the right web host is not an easy process. There are plenty of companies that promise you a lot of things but don’t deliver on their promise. In the past, I have talked about how you should go about choosing a web host for your blog, so there is no reason to address that again. But even if you do your best to research all the web hosting services around, there is still a chance you can sign up with the wrong partner.

When you start your blog, there is a good chance you are not going to get a lot of traffic right from the start. So the idea of signing up for a shared web hosting service can be intriguing. After all, nobody minds paying $5 a month for one of these services. But many bloggers feel hesitant when it comes to signing up for a VPS or dedicated server account. Those accounts are going to cost you significantly more money. Of course, there is a reason for that.

Shared web hosting services will work fine for new blogs. As long as you are not getting a decent amount of traffic, your shared web host should be handle your traffic. But there are many limitations on these accounts. It’s so easy to hit those limits with bad plugins or scripts on your server. What happens when you hit those limits? Your site could crash or become so slow. That’s the easiest way you can lose your loyal visitors as no one likes to wait a minute for your site to load up, no matter how good your content is.

Shop Like a Pro

The key to finding a good web host is knowing what you need and doing your best to find out what company can offer you what you need. Shared web hosting is not going to work for your blog forever. So if you have big plans for your blog, you want to take the time to search for a web host that allows you an upgrade path. So when you are searching for a web host, not only you want to find out about its shared hosting service but also about its private and dedicated servers as well. You can always switch from one host to another if you prefer it that way, but I’d rather know all about my web host before signing up.

You do want to beware of affiliate marketers when going through reviews for web hosts. Web hosts pay $50-$300 to their affiliates, so the paycheck can be significant for top affiliates. While there are honest affiliates out there, I have seen too many affiliates who promote only services that pay the most money per sign up. There is really nothing malicious  about that approach. After all, how different these web hosts can be, right?

You should always take the time to search for hosting complaints and scams to make sure you don’t sign up for a mediocre post. If you can find people who have first hand experience with hosting candidates, that’s even better. That can be accomplished by searching through top hosting forums on the Internet. Finally, when it comes to hosting, more expensive hosting doesn’t mean better service. So don’t just assume things.

I can’t emphasize this enough. As someone who’s been a victim of bad hosting in the past, I can tell you that don’t want to take any chances with your website. If your site is slow or down all the time, that could lead to a drop in your search engine rankings. Your audience is not going to tolerate your slow site either. When looking for a web host, don’t be cheap. Be smart!

A few days ago, I talked about the pains and challenges of finding a good web host for a blog. I have personally been through a whole lot of web hosts before settling down with Dream Host. In reality, no web host is perfect. All web hosting providers are going to suffer from outages, and every single company out there is going to have something that you won’t like. So, if you are too picky about your hosting service, you may want to get your own server.

I was guilty of being too picky when I got my first web hosting account. I remember I signed up for IX Web Hosting. At the time, IX Web Hosting was considered the best shared hosting service provider by most reputable sites. The hosting plans were rich and a whole lot of free bonuses were offered with each hosting plan. But I made the mistake of signing up for a Windows account than a Linux one. As great as WordPress is, it is not going to perform to its maximum on a Windows-based server. That’s just a fact. There are web hosts out there that offer compelling Windows hosting for WordPress. But, why would you want to use a MS hosting account for an open source CMS such as WordPress. My relationship with IX Web Hosting didn’t last more than a year as I was frustrated with all the issues that I had with WordPress on Windows. So if you are looking for a web host for your blog, make sure you understand the technologies that work the best with your blogging platform.

I then had a chance to work with 1&1 hosting. At first things were smooth, but 1&1 starting charging me twice for my domains, and WordPress started malfunctioning on their servers. When I asked their customer service about my issue, they told me that my theme folders were on one server and the rest of my WordPress blog was on another. I found that to be a strange explanation and a sign that things were not going to work out with 1&1. After a few months of going back and forth with the customer service, I decided to get out of my contract. I learned a couple of lessons from working with these guys:

• Never work with a company that makes it hard to cancel your service: if your web host makes it easy for people to sign up for an account, it should make it easy for them to cancel their accounts as well. If your host is trying to keep you on board by making the cancellation process impossible, then it just does not get the concept of customer service.
• Never work with a hosting provider that does not answer your questions properly on a timely fashion: when I signed up for 1&1 hosting plans, I was rushing into it due to a limited time promotion that they were running at the time. Had I contacted the customer service before signing up for 1&1′s hosting plan, I probably would have figured out if the decision to work with the company was the right decision for my business.

After 1&1, I spend a couple of months with a free hosting service. The hosting was actually great, but I wanted more support, and that’s how I got hooked up with Dream Host. Now, Dream Host’s shared hosting is not perfect, and there are minor issues that happen time to time. But, the service has been reliable, and it has met my criteria for a good web host:

• Great features
• Great price
• Great support
• Great documentation

Dream Host has the best support in the world. There is no doubt in my mind that is the case. I have never gone more than a couple of hours before getting an answer to my e-mails. They also let you call them, which is a plus. But what I like about the folks at Dream Host is the fact that they are straight with their customers. For instance, I wanted to run a social networking script on my hosting account, but the script was too slow. The folks at Dream Host told me that my hosting plan was not the right one for that script, and they offered to help me move to a better plan (they told me how much it would cost and why I should do it to get the best result). I call that great service.

At the end of the day, you need to do your due diligence before signing a contract with a web host. Dream Host has been very good to me, but I am sure there are a few other good hosts out there that offer great service to their customers. There is more to a good web host than a great name, and that’s the lesson I learned the hard way.

In the third part of this series, I will discuss things that you need to look for in a web hosting service before signing a contract with a hosting company. Stay tuned.

I would like to think of purchasing web hosting services as a long-term investment. You can try to be cheap and get a free web host, but do not expect your host to be there for you when you need them the most. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you are planning to achieve with your blog. If your ultimate goal is to have multi-million dollar blog, then all roads lead to owning private servers for your business. But you should not start with private servers right out of the bat. But you should plan ahead to make sure your web host can handle the amount of traffic and hits that you will be bringing in. Believe me, you do not want a web host that is great in marketing but pathetic in customer service.

So what do you need to know about a web host before deciding whether it is good enough for your business? You should know how much traffic they can handle in the first place. You want to start with hosts that have 99.9% or better up-time reliability. Many companies claim to have that kind of reliability but you should definitely check authority sites such as Consumer Reports to find out more about your web host. In addition, you should check blogs and forums to find customer complaints and verify the host’s reputation.

You should also find about the features that the host is offering. Disk space and bandwidth are two factors that you should find out about before signing up for a web hosting service. You should also go for dedicated IP addresses if you have multiple blogs. Having the ability to host multiple external domains without any extra fees is a big plus here.

Your host of choosing should come with enough e-mail capabilities to help you manage your blog/business more effectively. Most web-hosts limit the number of e-mails you can have on your account. But as long as you have enough of them, you should not be too worried about it. But you want to sign up for a host that offers you POP3, IMAP, and HTTP e-mail access. I can’t remember the last time I read an e-mail without outlook, and that wouldn’t be possible without above e-mail protocols.

Your web host should support the latest programming scripts such as PHP 5, Ruby, and ASP.net (if you choose a Windows hosting account). Support for Flex and Cold Fusion would be necessary if you are building a Flash-based site, but WordPress and Blogger are not flash-based, so you will be fine without them.You want to make sure your host comes with database capabilities to support your dynamic blog. MySQL support is a must here.

Most web hosts understand that there is more to business that putting up a site. That’s why they are offering marketing packages to their customers. You should always try to take advantage of coupons and vouchers that are made available with your hosting plan. A few web hosts offer $50 vouchers for Google Adwords and YSM with their hosting services. Make sure you explore these offers before signing up for a hosting service.

At the end of the day, your hosting service can determine the success or failure of your blog. If you are stuck with a bad web host, your site could be down for hours each day (without you knowing it). Try to go for a web host that has a great reputation in the industry and not just a great marketing campaign. And remember, in most cases you get what you pay for.

In the part II of this series, I will specifically discuss the hosts that I have worked with and how you can find the right host for your blog. Stay tuned.