The Devil's in the Details: Hidden Caveats in Web Hosting Discovered by RateMyHost

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., Feb. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Hosting a website online has become a necessity for most businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs. With a wide variety of hosting platforms and companies to choose from, each offering different plans, price points, and features, it seems easy enough to find a well-suited hosting package and sign up immediately.

As a business grows, so too does its website, often requiring more resources or different features than a particular plan can support. This disparity is eased by plan upgrades, addon services, and even switching to a different hosting platform.

But this may not be profitable, or even possible, depending on the chosen host. Most web hosts have hidden caveats, fees, and rules buried in the Terms of Service, which the account holder would have already agreed to during the sign-up process. This disproportionately affects small businesses and non-profits who do not have teams on hand to hammer out contracts, or the spare funds available to pay whatever fee the host has set. Some hosts may even hold a website hostage, refusing to allow the transfer or download of data until all fees and conditions have been met.

For example, newer hosts like Wix and SquareSpace use proprietary builders and software. This makes the creation of a website simple and streamlined, but leaves little room for users who wish to transfer elsewhere or explore their options. Websites built with proprietary software cannot be transferred anywhere else, since no competing platform will be capable of supporting the same software. Even with hosts like Weebly, who allow other companies to offer the Weebly builder to their clients, will not allow the transfer of a website, even if both hosts support Weebly. This makes transferring completely impossible without a complete rebuild of the website - something most small businesses don't have the budget for.

Even if you avoid proprietary website builders altogether, traditional hosts can still put up roadblocks to the easy movement and complete management of your website. Hosts like FatCow, Dreamhost, and iPage use proprietary control panels, software required for users to manage and set up their websites. While this does not eliminate the possibility of transferring, it can lead to complications or incomplete transfers, since common control panels such as cPanel cannot properly decode websites created through a proprietary control panel.

Even users who stick to cPanel and build their sites in universally-supported HTML can experience major issues with hosting companies. Regardless of the control panel or structure of a website, the ability to take backups should be universal, but some hosts will either refuse access to backups for transferring users, or block backups altogether, leaving the website trapped on their hosting platform.

Most of these problems can be avoided by sticking to common software and maintaining a good backup policy on the user-end, but many hosts still have hidden fees or rising rates coded into their terms. Although raising prices between sign-up and renewal is an industry standard, the rate at which those prices increase varies wildly. HostGator's rates nearly double between sign-up and renewal, and BlueHost's rates almost triple. iPage will not only surprise you with a renewal bill four times more expensive than what you paid for sign-up, but tack on a $50.00 fee just to cancel your service with them. You'll have to pay iPage if you want to stop paying iPage.

These hidden terms and fees aren't exclusive to one host, either. A staggering number of hosts are actually subsidiaries of a conglomerate called EIG, who has their own core set of policies and price hikes they expect their subsidiaries to adhere to. This means that even if you manage to transfer away from one host, you could be transferring to another host owned by the same parent corporation, with startlingly similar terms and conditions.

With so many issues hiding in plain sight (albeit in a 10 point font,) many small business owners or non-profit directors may be looking for alternatives to hosting a website. While that is definitely an option, and can work if the circumstances are just right, the hosting industry still has some straight shooters with fair pricing, user-first policies, and upfront terms and conditions.

Both GreenGeeks and HostMetro offer introductory rates of $2.95 per month. GreenGeeks is a great choice for people or organizations aiming to protect the environment, while HostMetro offers fixed rates (at $2.95) for the more budget-oriented clients. LiquidWeb only offers fully-managed hosting, which is expensive, but well worth the price considering the host will fix any and all problems with your website, instead of causing more. WebHostingPad also scored high marks in both flexibility and honesty for a shared host, especially considering their $3.49 per month rate for renewals, which is second only to HostMetro's fixed-rate $2.95.

Finding a good hosting company is possible, it just takes a concerted effort, detailed research, and time. Luckily, people looking to launch a new website or transfer to a new host don't have to start from scratch. RateMyHost has already done most of the work, poring over Terms of Service, cold-calling support lines, and ironing out the details into summarized reviews and rankings.

For more information on hosting companies and launching your first website, visit ratemyhost.com

SOURCE RateMyHost