Reader Web Hosting Wars! The Battle for Disk Space
Web Hosting Wars! The Battle for Disk Space
I read lots and lots of emails from hosting companies and compare them with those hosting companies that I’m affiliated with and a lot of the time it’s as if they all employ the same PR firm. Once you’ve read one of the emails you know what all the others are going to say, something along the lines of:
- Dear Affiliate, we are happy to announce an increase in disk space availability for all our basic hosting plans. We now offer XYZ MB (Mega Bytes) of disk storage space to you and your customers.
So what’s the problem? Why complain about getting something for free! Well I don’t really have a gripe, there is no problem really, it’s just that if the hosting companies want to make offers like this they should really compare their service with all their competition, not just a select few.
Why do I say this? Well, to offer increased disk space when all of the hosting company’s I’m affiliated with give unlimited disk space seems a bit redundant. It’s good from their advertising viewpoint, and an affiliate offering customers and increase in disk space for free is something that just “sweetens the pot”. Sometimes more is better.
But lets face it, unless you’re running a very popular forum or web site that stores many thousands of pictures and movies, 500 MB will probably be all you will ever need. If you’re an average company with a web site containing less than 200 pages (with graphics) you’re not even going to come close to using this disk space.
So this “Hook” to lure people in, is in my opinion a waste of effort. It would be better to improve customer support, help screens, the user interface, etc. In other words give the new user in particular, a better more enjoyable experience.
As I indicated above, it’s better to have too much storage space then not enough, but there comes a point where the numbers just don’t mean anything any more.
So when choosing a hosting company, look for the things the company offers that set them apart from other web hosting services. Make a list of the items you need from your hosting provider.
- Is there customer support good?
- Is the set-up and Domain free?
- Where are there servers located?
- Is cPanel available (a very easy control panel for beginners)?
- What’s the whole “Price per month” cost?
- How much monthly traffic is allowed?
- Do they have affordable SSL certificates.
- Are eCommerce solutions available.
- Are they ICANN-accredited.
I suppose the Host wars will continue, that’s business after all, by offering more disk storage space, the hosting companies will entice more affiliates, the affiliates in turn will gain more customers and the customers will be happy with the excess of disk space.
Oh well, as long as it’s a win, win for everybody.
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