For a website, a good hosting is immensely necessary. Hosting offers the foundation of your site, business and brand particularly when you are first starting out. If there's any server downtime, it can potentially ruin that you have planned and built for these long years. Hence, if you're serious about the fate of your website, you need to ensure that the hosting is given in safe hands. These days it is really tough to choose between the numerous web hosting companies that have sprung up here and there. Consumers are continuously tempted by attractive promotions done by the web hosting companies. Read on the concerns of this article to know about the guide to being a smart consumer before being carried away by gimmicks and promotions.

The gimmick of "free domain"

It is true that free domains will sound to be nice enough but there are some things that you need to be aware of before taking a plunge in them. Have you wondered about who owns the domain? Well, the domain might be offered free of cost but the hosting company will own it! What does that imply? It clearly means that you're stuck with the web hosting company for good and that you require paying a hefty amount in order to get back the domain. The first year may be free but soon after when you wish to renew, they will charge you heavy costs.

Separate companies for hosting and domain

It is not that you have to register the domain names with the same hosting company. By saying that, we don't imply that your present web hosting company is not credible but it's all about locating the most trustworthy and dependable registrar right from the beginning. The domain name that you have is your online identity and hence you need to be careful about it.

Disk space and bandwidth terms should be familiar

Both disk space and bandwidth are terms which are mostly ignored by the consumers who are shopping for a web hosting company. Remember to ask yourself what would happen if your website became extremely popular overnight and started drawing millions of audience. Would you have to pay huge fees for the data transfer? Definitely, most of the websites won't move past with their quota of bandwidth only due to high traffic but if you offer some downloadable files in your site that would possibly happen. Hence, be watchful about such terms before choosing a company.

Catch of unlimited storage space

It goes without saying that unlimited storage will sound like a great offer but don't forget that there's no such thing called Unlimited Storage. If you've ever gone through the TOS of web hosting service completely, you will notice a section which speaks about Server Usage/CPU. There it is clearly mentioned that if your website utilizes more storage than what is allotted, it actually violates the TOS and henceforth the site will be terminated. So, don't fall into the trap of the hosting companies.

Make a comprehensive research on them

Before you opt for a web hosting company, you need to know about the number of consumers who have complained about the services of different companies. The larger companies often disappoint people more as they have a larger and wider range of disgruntled consumers. But that may just be a small percentage of their entire customer base. If you consider statements on personal blogs, that can at times be highly subjective and influenced at the same time. Moreover, there are some people who are more into pointing out the mistakes than praising. So, it is not right to always believe that other people are saying.

Save and purchase with commission coupons & rebates

Web hosting is such an online business service where majority of the companies are ready to pay off a year of revenue for a single customer. It may not be wise for you to move out for shopping without the commission coupons or rebates. You will definitely come across many hosting companies which don't have any affiliation program or coupons but does that always mean that they're not reliable hosting companies? Never!Avoid moving into long term contracts

You will see companies that will ask you to pay for 2 years of services, up front and in exchange they offer you some ridiculous discounts. Unless the hosting companies have an incredible track record or history, it is better not to involve in such contracts.

Before you set out hunting for web hosting companies, you can search Google with the query, "web hosting company sucks" and you will be rather surprised to check the results. There are too many people who have complained about the pathetic results and you have to learn from them so that you don't receive the same results.