Presales questions and purchasing hosting

20. How fast will the account be created?

Some hosts boast instant activation (which has an obvious benefit for the customer) , while some take their time to create a new account, but for a good reason: to make sure that the buyer is not a fraud.

Don't be offended, you have no reason to be. In the end it's good to know that the host takes care that few unworthy people get access on their servers. These unworthy individuals might be hackers or spammers. You don't want them to be your virtual neighbors, do you?

21. Is the account scalable? How does the upgrade occur? Is there a fee involved other than the higher monthly price?

It's important for you to be able to upgrade to a larger plan as needed (obviously up to the point when your website needs a whole server in terms of resources).

22. What's the price for excess bandwidth and space?

Usually a sudden burst of traffic is a reason for joy, but if you happen to use more bandwidth than you were allocated, it can be a pricey business if the excess consumption bears a hefty price.

23. Is there a daily bandwidth limit?

Most hosts only have a monthly bandwidth limit. It is easier to estimate with relative precision how much bandwidth you might need in a month than to estimate the daily bandwidth consumption. That's why you must be careful about hosts putting a cap on your daily hosting bandwidth. Read carefully how things are handled in case of excess usage.

24. Are there any limits on file size?

Again, most hosts don't limit the maximum size of a file that you can host under your account (as long as it's within your account's limits of course). Be careful and ask to make sure, especially if you plan to host big files.

25. How often will you back-up my website? Are the backups kept on or off site?

Obviously more often is better. Off site is also better because if for some reason the datacenter burns down (yes, that would be a major, yet highly unlikely disaster), the back-up would not be destroyed.

26. Is there a setup fee?

Setup fees used to be the norm in the early days of hosting, a partial reason being that setting up an account was not as easy as it is today and that setup fee covered the time it took to create the account.

Nowadays setup fees are often used as a way to encourage/persuade people to commit to hosting for longer periods of time. If you want to pay monthly or quarterly you'll not only pay more that if you'd pay yearly (usually that's how it is) but you'll also be charged a hefty setup fee. This obviously makes people seriously consider paying yearly.

As a general rule it's safer to pay monthly and once you build up the confidence that the host is indeed good, you can consider paying yearly to save a few dollars. If the feedback from the customers is exceptional and you're that confident that the host will be very good, you could pay yearly from the very start, but be aware that you're assuming a risk. In the end it's all a matter of trust.

Usually the moneyback guarantee only covers you for the first 30 days of the whole year and not many hosts will prorate a refund. What if the service starts to crumble 45 days after you paid for it? It's a very common story: "I paid for a whole year so now I'm stuck. I can't afford/don't want to pay again to move to another host." So customer beware!

27. How many months do I have to pay in advance for?

Some hosts don't allow monthly payments, just quarterly, semiannually and so on. There are even hosts who only accept yearly payments. Sometimes the price is expressed in dollars per month, but an asterisk points to the fact that the figure is true just for yearly payments. So be careful. If anything is unclear ask first, pay later. 

28. Is a domain included in the price?

Sometimes the domain is included in the price (usually when you pay for a longer period of time). Generally I advise not to buy a domain from your host and especially not get it bundled with the hosting fee. Yes, I know most hosts will not like this advice either, but again I will side with you, the customer. You are much safer getting the domain from a well known registrar than getting it from your new host. You're definitely sure then that the registered domain name will have your name associated with it and you have direct and complete control over your domain.

You see, some unscrupulous hosts buy the domain you requested and let you use it, but they are the ones who "own" the domain. If you want to move to a new host you'll find yourself "jailed" as the host will not give your the domain that you paid for. That's a very bad situation to be in.

29. Do you have a free trial so that I can test the service?

Note that many hosts don't have a free trial because this exposes them to all kinds of problems like spammers and hackers trying to abuse this feature.

30. Do you allow adult content to be hosted on your servers?

This is important if you want to upload adult content on their server or if you have something against sharing the server with adult websites. Also some people are quite certain that adult websites attract more hackers and that the server might be compromised more often. I have yet to see a serious research on the subject though.