Web Hosting Guides, FAQs and Articles

Home > Articles > Important Questions To Ask Your Hosting Provider

Important Questions To Ask Your Hosting Provider

When searching for a web hosting provider, it is always important to contact every potential hosting provider on your list and compare their response time and quality of their reply. You should also ask them as much as possible about their business and the services they provide. The following questions will provide a good baseline when contacing any hosting provider you have an interest in.

Is there a setup fee?
- Some web hosting providers require a setup fee, but neglect to mention this anywhere on their site. Find this out first.
What features does your hosting service make available?
- Find out if they offer support for PHP, CGI or any other programming language you require. Ask them for the amount of databases, email accounts, space and bandwidth allocated.
Do you oversell or allow overselling with your hosting accounts?
- Overselling is the practice of selling more resources or space than can be offered on the assumption that most customers will only use a portion of the resources provided. Just because a web host oversells or allows overselling does not mean they are unreliable, but a hosting provider who does not oversell their resources will generally have less problems with high server loads and outages.
What is your uptime gurantee?
- Most web hosts provide an uptime gurantee of 98% or higher and if any given month falls below this uptime gurantee you may be entitled to a full or partial refund according to the TOS of the web host.
Do you perform backups and if so how often?
- It's always good to know that your sites are being backed up on a continual basis. Although sole responsibility to keep current backups ultimately falls into your hands. Don't rely on your hosting provider and just assume backups are being made.
Do you offer 24/7 tech support?
- If it is 3 A.M., your sites are down and your host does not provide 24/7 support don't expect your sites to be back up until later that morning.
Can I upgrade my hosting services at a later time if I require more space or bandwidth?
- Be certain the hosting provider has room for growth. If traffic to your site increases you will also use up more bandwidth. If you can not upgrade your hosting package you will be charged extra for this increased bandwidth.
Do you offer a money back gurantee?
- If you are unhappy with the service being provided and decide to cancel your service within a given time period (usually 30 days) take advantage of the money back gurantee.