A reliable web host keeps your site running smoothly with minimal downtime. A bad web host, on the other hand, can be detrimental to your success by not helping you exploit the maximum potential of your traffic, let alone your search engine rankings.
As a business owner and webmaster, you should be aware that even the best of web hosts can turn into an ugly duckling over time. Hosts are often bought out by large groups and undergo major restructuring or changes in services.
For those who own an online business, it is necessary to put in place a certain level of defense and to protect yourself against your own web host so that you are not 100% dependent on it.
Register your domain with another party
Many hosting companies are now offering free domain registration with the purchase of a hosting package. However, it might be a good idea to spend $ 6-15 more and register your primary domain with another registrar. We recommend going through a registrar specializing in the domain such as the excellent internet.bs for example.
At Digital Opportunities, we generally use free domains for our secondary sites, which are used, for example, to carry out our host tests or our various SEO tests.
For your domains we recommend the excellent Namesilo and Internet.bs which are first class domain registrars!
It is much easier to change registrars when you register your domain with a third party. Otherwise, you will end up having to wait for your host to release your domain. This can get tricky since they also lose your hosting business.
If you’ve already registered your domain with your web host, don’t panic. You can still easily transfer it to a third-party registrar.
We provide you with a tool allowing you to easily compare the prices of domains in .fr ( follow this link ), .com ( follow this link ) and .net ( link here ).
Be careful with your payment method
While it is convenient to set up an automated payment with your hosting provider, it can also be problematic when you want to cancel.
Unscrupulous businesses can continue to charge a bank card long after you cancel your subscription.
There are three popular payment options when opening a web hosting account. Each type of payment has its advantages and disadvantages.
PayPal
PayPal allows you to pay the merchant without them ever having access to your payment card information.
Additionally, PayPal has built in measures to protect you as a customer and merchant against fraud, theft, etc.
It’s easy to cancel the subscription yourself from the PayPal user account panel. In the event of a dispute, PayPal often gives reason to the buyer which is even more here!
Credit card
Although it is more difficult to get a new credit card account number, many credit card companies offer some built-in protection for the consumer against unauthorized charges.
However, carefully review the policies of your credit card company before providing any information to a website host. In some extreme cases, you may need to cancel your account to stop the charges.
Debit card
An unscrupulous company may continue to charge your account and force you to take out fees in an attempt to stop the payment. If you pay by debit card, it is easier to replace if something goes wrong. You can also simply withdraw all the money from your debit account if the hosting company continues to charge you after canceling your account.
Choose a hosting provider with a long trial period
Warranties are a good indicator of whether you can trust one business more than one that doesn’t. A long trial period shows that the host is confident in the quality of the service they have to offer. This is why the trial period is often included in our rating tables for hosting providers.
Web hosting providers should offer at least a month, but some offer an even longer trial period.
Some of the best web hosts we tested offer the longest refund period:
Infomaniak : 30 days
O2Switch : 30 days
InMotion Hosting : 90 or 30 days
SiteGround : 30 daya
Avoid companies with blacklisted IP addresses
There are many reasons to avoid blacklisted IP addresses, including so that emails sent from your domain are not blocked by other providers due to the IP. A blacklisted host means that your email box can also be blacklisted.
Here’s how to verify that an IP address is blacklisted in two easy steps:
Before registering, ask for the IP address of one of your host’s servers.
Perform a quick check using the Spam Haus search tool .
Compare prices and features before purchasing
As a business manager, you want to get the best deal possible. You should compare hosting features and prices, but also look at reviews online and even contact a few people who host with these companies.
Two questions to ask:
Is there a better option than the pre-selected host?
Is the web host too expensive or too cheap?
As a general rule, when you receive offers for any type of job, you should reject the lower and the higher. Since a web host basically bids for what they have to offer and the price of their packages, you should also avoid the lowest and highest rate hosts (unless you have the budget to match).
Remember:
When a hosting deal is too good to be true, it probably is.
In hosting, you usually get what you pay for. If you choose a plan that costs $ 1 / month, you will likely end up on an overloaded server.
Also avoid web hosts who charge a higher price unless there is a good reason. For example, WPX Hosting charges almost $ 22 / month for managed WordPress hosting, but their plans come with expert WP support and plenty of features.
Back up your site regularly
Regularly backing up your site is important no matter where you host it. With it, you can be sure that you have a recent version of your site’s files and resources in case anything goes wrong, whether it’s a hack or a hosting issue. Backups are often easy to perform, especially if you are using Cron jobs.
Suppose you are working in the cPanel environment, log into your web host’s control panel, and then enter the following command into the Cron command field:
mysqldump –opt -Q -u dbusername –password = dbpassword dbname dbname | gzip> / path-to-store-the-backup-file / db_backup. sql.gz
Replace the variable fields with the information relevant to your database and users, then email the database to yourself to free up storage space that saving the file to your current system would require. Extract the zip file, then edit the database details before saving the file and uploading it to your server.
The final step is to enter “php – q / path-to-the-php-script-folder / backup.php” in the Cron job section of cPanel.
Most good web hosts (like PlanetHoster for example) offer automated remote backup systems in a second data center which is highly secure
Regularly monitor the uptime and speed of the hosting
Accommodation uptime
Uptime refers to how long your website is up and running, available to visitors and potential customers.
Anything that isn’t uptime is downtime. Downtime means people can’t get to your site, which can be frustrating for potential visitors while costing you traffic and income. Also, if people aren’t able to reach your site the first time, they may not try again.
In short, the higher your uptime, the better
Uptime guarantee
A good hosting provider will provide uptime guarantees around 99.9% which means they will make sure your website is live and running during that percentage of the time.
However, we never know for sure if the hosting company is delivering on their promises, which is why you need to track your site’s uptime and seek compensation if it’s below the provider’s guaranteed rate.
To track a site’s uptime, we use web tools that monitor the site every 1-5 minutes and record downtime (if applicable).
Hosting server speed
Your hosting speed is important. Tons of studies and research have proven that your website’s response rate affects search ranking, conversion rate, and visibility to visitors.
Page speed is now one of Google’s ranking factors for mobile search. For example, Amazon would lose $ 1.6 billion each year if their site were to slow down for even a second!
It is therefore important to regularly measure and monitor the speed of your server. If your hosting is constantly slowing down, work with support to determine and resolve the root cause (or migrate to a new host).
Free tools to track server uptime: Uptime Robot, Host Tracker, and Pingdom. Free tools to measure website speed: Bitcatcha, GtMetrix, Pingdom, and UpTrends.
Update your password regularly
As hackers get smarter, making your site more secure is an absolute must.
Three things you can do to strengthen your password:
Use a strong password that is not easy to guess. Use a combination of letters, numbers, uppercase, lowercase, and special symbols.
Change your passwords frequently to protect yourself against theft or hacking.
Keep good antivirus software on your computer and make sure it is up to date. This will prevent hackers from accessing your computer and stealing your credentials.
Always remain open to other options
Nothing forces you to stay with the same web host forever. Sometimes a hosting company starts out on a very positive note and then sees their services deteriorate over time. Sometimes a web host grows too quickly relative to the servers and infrastructure they operate and their server performance and customer service end up suffering.
Keep in mind that:
It is really not difficult to change your host. Some companies will even migrate the site for free upon request.
Changing web host rarely affects Google rankings these days. Just be sure to minimize your site’s downtime during the change.
Understand the needs of your website
Knowing your real needs and knowing how to plan will help you make the best choice of web host. For example, if you need shared hosting right now, but you’ll likely need VPS down the road, you should avoid providers that only offer shared hosting
