The most popular misunderstandings and myths about hosting
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The biggest Hosting Myths revealed
There are many hosting myths around, here are the two most popular ones. Comments are very welcome, I'll constantly add more.
Free Hosting means hosting for free
There is nothing like free hosting. There is "no cost hosting", but that's far from free. You may think that's hairsplitting, but noone gives you webspace without profiting in one way or another. Many freehosts for example take your 404 error traffic and redirect it to another site, or they display banners, text ads, etc. Some add their own links for SEO, some do random redirects of 1% of the visitors.
As long as you just host your private homepage with 20 visitors a month, that's a good deal. But imagine building a site with 10000 visitors a month. On your own hosting, you could maybe sell the bannerspace the freehost occupies for 50$, your 404 traffic would generate another $20, but the hosting itself would just cost you $10. Basic maths: You'd have $60 more on your own paid hosting and are "paying" the freehost $70 for hosting worth $10.
Don't get me wrong, freehosts are a great way to start, to test things, but be aware that there is a point of time when switching to paid hosting means more money in your pocket and your own sites belonging to you forever.
As long as you just host your private homepage with 20 visitors a month, that's a good deal. But imagine building a site with 10000 visitors a month. On your own hosting, you could maybe sell the bannerspace the freehost occupies for 50$, your 404 traffic would generate another $20, but the hosting itself would just cost you $10. Basic maths: You'd have $60 more on your own paid hosting and are "paying" the freehost $70 for hosting worth $10.
Don't get me wrong, freehosts are a great way to start, to test things, but be aware that there is a point of time when switching to paid hosting means more money in your pocket and your own sites belonging to you forever.
Unlimited transfer means I can transfer unlimited data
Wow, unlimited transfer. Sounds like you could host YouTube for $5 a month, awesome deal. But stop, wasn't there something called "bandwidth", too?
Unlimited transfer means that you can transfer as much data as possible in a month. If the data transferred is water, bandwidth is the pipe. On a shared hosting account you share a fixed monthly bandwidth with all other users on this server. If you are the only one with a site transferring alot of data on the server, that's great, but the more others have popular sites, the less bandwidth is left for you. Back to the water pipes example: The pipe has a fixed diameter, so no matter how much water your try to pump through it, there is a point where the limit of the pipe is reached. So, it's nice to know you could transfer 10000 gigs, but if the upstream connection of the server is only 1000 gigs a month and 500 other accounts are hosted on the server, you are lucky if you are able to get maybe 10 gigs of data transferred.
Even more important, many hosts have a fair use policy, meaning that you are allowed to do anything unless your account negatively affects all others. If you use "too much" of the bandwidth, you'd either have to upgrade or get your account disabled.
It's only fair that all customers get an equal share of the available resources they paid for, but this means you should carefully plan how much bandwidth you need and not try to max out a cheap shared account. Same goes for CPU power, especially scripts can use loads of CPU power fast, so if you are planning to use a PPC tracking software like Prosper202 for example, get your own server and don't try running it on a shared hosting account.
Unlimited transfer means that you can transfer as much data as possible in a month. If the data transferred is water, bandwidth is the pipe. On a shared hosting account you share a fixed monthly bandwidth with all other users on this server. If you are the only one with a site transferring alot of data on the server, that's great, but the more others have popular sites, the less bandwidth is left for you. Back to the water pipes example: The pipe has a fixed diameter, so no matter how much water your try to pump through it, there is a point where the limit of the pipe is reached. So, it's nice to know you could transfer 10000 gigs, but if the upstream connection of the server is only 1000 gigs a month and 500 other accounts are hosted on the server, you are lucky if you are able to get maybe 10 gigs of data transferred.
Even more important, many hosts have a fair use policy, meaning that you are allowed to do anything unless your account negatively affects all others. If you use "too much" of the bandwidth, you'd either have to upgrade or get your account disabled.
It's only fair that all customers get an equal share of the available resources they paid for, but this means you should carefully plan how much bandwidth you need and not try to max out a cheap shared account. Same goes for CPU power, especially scripts can use loads of CPU power fast, so if you are planning to use a PPC tracking software like Prosper202 for example, get your own server and don't try running it on a shared hosting account.
So, cheap or free is bad
No, it isn't. Free hosting or cheap virtual accounts are perfectly fine for most private homepages and even for a small business, but there is a reason why a dedicated server doesn't come with a $5 price tag.
