Cheap web hosting sounds like a great deal. Your site is served up everyday for all your users for a measly dollar amount per month. Trouble is, you get what you pay for, but what exactly does that get you?
Sure they have on their site “unlimited” everything, but is it really? No, it’s a selling tactic. Just ask them and watch them dodge the question. How much memory does the server get for your site? If you get over 300 or 1,000 visits a month, what happens? Does the site shutdown? Is it shared hosting? Or is it a dedicated server? How many other sites are on the server? Most will choose to not disclose specific information about your setup, because of competition or the real numbers would reflect accurately the rate you pay too much.
Cheap Web Hosting Is Bad For SEO
You may not know the answers above, but Google does. Site speed and your neighbors on your IP Address (the servers address) matters.
You wouldn’t invest in a house in a bad part of town, move in, and think you’ll resell it for more than what you paid for it do you? Or have your friends and family feel comfortable visiting you at night?
Same for your site. Slow sites are bad for SEO, and shared hosting is not known to be fast when you have that long awaited uptick in traffic you are hoping for your business.
The Following I have personally run into over the years with this site. When I started I was on shared hosting. Before I knew it I was averaging almost 1,000 visits a month. My site experienced outages lasting for unknown period of time.
Things I dealt with
Slow performance – When logged into WordPress, it was painful to edit or update anything. Often the server timed out (not enough Memory) and the dreaded white screen of death appeared.
Poor SEO rankings – The Big one right? The reason cheap Web Hosting is bad for SEO is not just speed, but your unknown neighbors. Cheap hosting usually is known for hosting spam sites or link selling sites. Don’t believe me? Ask Matt Cutts.
Site Outages – Another big factor that’s bad for SEO and just plain bad for visits and potential lost revenue, is outages.
Now, you have to know that web host servers are like any other machine. They require maintenance and if you’ve owned a PC you know you’ve never had a problem right? Yeah, that’s a lie we are all aware of.
While a server should never go down, it happens. But don’t expect a server admin to come running when you’re paying $4.99 a month. Downtime can be expected around midnight to 5am but not peak hours. If it’s a recurring thing, contact your web admin, and ask what needs to happen to fix it, or it may be time to pay a little extra to ensure fewer problems.
Better hosting means nightly backups, and if necessary a crash cart (yes that’s the term) is used to keep things running while the server admins get in and fix the problem. Anyone who’s owned a house pays the plumber without question because we need to be able to have water, and having a plumber ready on call is priceless.
