Top 15 Questions you Should Ask Before Buying Web Hosting

1) Do they provide money back guarantee?

Any time money back guarantee and 30 day 100% money back guarantee. You may also want to see if they offer a price freeze option.

3) Is there a start up fee?

This is not a bad thing; you just want to be sure you are aware so you can budget for it.

2) If I register my domain with you am I the owner?

You want to be sure that you are given full ownership of the domain. If not get your domain registered else where.

3) Can you transfer you domain to another company at any time?

You should be able to transfer and cancel anytime you want.

4) Do you provide web site statistics information?

You want to be sure that you can access your statistics either from a log or from software provided by the host company.

5) Can you earn money by promoting the host company?

You may want to promote the host if you can earn money from them, so this is another money making avenue.

6) What is the company's uptime record?

You are looking for at least a 99.8 percent uptime in a month's period.

7) Can I upgrade my account?

You want a company that will allow you to up or down grade when you feel the need without penalties.

8) How often will my site be backed up?

The cheaper host you buy the less your site will be backed up is how this usually works, so be sure to check.

9) Is the technical support available every day at all hours?

If you have a problem at 3 am you want to know you can get it fixed. Many hosts offer this through email support, which is fine.

10) What are your excess bandwidth charges?

It is important to know what you will be charged if you go over and above your data transfer amount. Data transfer (bandwidth) is the amount of data going in and out of your site.

11) How secure is the site?

The servers be dual firewall protected against power failure, natural disaster and malicious people.

12) Does the account come with a control panel?

A control panel comes with most hosts; this allows a good overall view and quick access to most of your features.

13) Are search engine submissions included in your package?

Your site should be submitted to search engines at least once a month.

14) How long has the company been around?

You want a company that has been around at least a few years. The last thing you want is to choose a host, get your site up and then the host disappears and you loose all that work.

15) How will your emails be handled for your web site?

Will you be offered POP3 email accounts, email forwarding, email auto responders or web accessible email or maybe a combination of them?