Myths of Web Hosting

The internet is full of web hosting offers, but unfortunately, many popular hosts are using unscrupulous advertising to mislead their customers and set them up for problems. If you are looking for a host for your web site, read this article to learn about some of the biggest hosting myths and how to avoid common mistakes.  

Myth 1: Unlimited bandwidth will solve everything

Bandwidth is the amount of information sent out to people on the internet; the more traffic your web site gets, the more bandwidth it uses. Bandwidth costs money, so how much you pay for hosting depends on how much traffic you need to handle.

Unlimited bandwidth would be great if it were possible--but it's not. Your web page files are stored on a special computer called a server, which sends information out over the internet. Like all computers, the server has limits; it can only handle a certain amount of work. Give it too much traffic to handle, and it will slow down and become unreliable. Obviously, no number of servers would ever be enough to give even one customer truly unlimited bandwidth. All right, you might ask, but can it still be close to "unlimited" in a practical sense? (Some web hosts have taken up the term "unmetered" which has more of this connotation.)

Unfortunately, it's still fiction. Your actual maximum bandwidth might be quite low indeed. You'll be sharing your server with many other accounts. If your account starts using too many resources, it's very likely that you'll be suspended or forced to upgrade to a much more expensive plan. So much for "unlimited" hosting!

Since offering unlimited bandwidth hosting is such a blatant misrepresentation, it's not a good idea to use such hosts, regardless of how much traffic or disk space your site uses. If their business model depends on deception, can you trust them with your web pages? Even if your own site is small, other customers on your server may try to take advantage of the supposedly unlimited bandwidth and cause problems.

(If you're still hoping to find a real unlimited bandwidth deal, I have a car to sell you that gets unlimited mileage from a tank of gas.)

Look out for more of the articles on The Myths of Web Hosting to be published!