Choosing a host, and a plan for your site can be an overwhelming task. There are so many hosts out there and the competition is so fierce that they can all look the same at times.

When choosing a host be sure to ask questions and read the fine print. Any host worth their salt will be more than willing to answer all the questions you have before your choose them as your provider. If they seem like they're disinterested in answering your questions, or like they're hurrying to get you "out of the way" so they can move on to the next one, this may be a sign of things to come. You should expect, and require, meaningful replies to your inquires. Even to the simplest of questions.

If they're a larger company, search the web for customer reviews on their service. It may be harder to find information on them if they're smaller, or just starting out but larger companies are usually easy to research.

Also make sure you look for, or inquire about their support policy and how long you can expect to wait before hearing a response to your support tickets. With such strong competition many hosts are offering the same packages, for the same prices, using the same "behind-the-scenes" methods so in the end; support will be the thing that distinguishes a host from the others.

Speaking of plans and methods. "Unlimited" drive space and bandwidth is a common trend in the packages offered by many hosts these days. Keep in mind that nothing is unlimited. There is no physical way to provide unlimited drive space or bandwidth while still making hosting affordable. There ARE limits and if you don't read the fine print, you may find those limits by surprise one day when your site is suspended due to "resource abuse".

Overselling is also a common trend. In fact; Duvall Technologies is one of the very few who DO NOT oversell. Overselling is what allows hosts to offer "unlimited" plans or plans with overly high quota limits, and pack as many on to one server as possible. Overselling is the act of selling more accounts and/or space than the server is capable of handling. A server may have an 80GB hard drive, but they may still put 200 people with 2TB (or "unlimited") packages on that server. There's no way to support that kind of space, but they know that most users will only use a small fraction of the space and bandwidth they are alloted and count on that fact while they hope someone doesn't try to use all the space/bandwidth they pay for.

They are able to get away with this because of the provisions they place in their Terms of Service, Acceptable Usage Policy, and/or Resource Usage Policy agreements that you agree to when you sign up for service. Many of them place limitations on the number of files (AKA inodes) you're allowed to have in one, or all of the directories on your account. Inode limitations on top of an arsenal of other limitations make sure that you will never be allowed to use the full limits of the package you're paying for.

When deciding on a plan be mindful of what you'll REALLY need. Your average site will be less than 10MB (including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Images) in size. Since the quotas also include FTP and Email, you can assume the average site will use 100MB or less in disk space. If you are using videos or MP3s on your site, you're looking at around 200-300MB of space. Chances are, you'll never need "unlimited" space, or even 10TB. Bandwidth is similar. The average site will use less that 500MB in bandwidth/month.

You may think "well what am I losing if I pay for more space if the price is similar?" Well, first you're not getting what you pay for as you'll never be allowed to use all the space they charge you for. Second, you can almost be sure that you will be placed on an over-crowded server where you will experience other server hardware limitations such as RAM, or the CPU.

When searching for a host, be realistic about what your needs are and search for a host that will give you realistic limitations. Be careful about hosts that throw out unreasonable numbers. That only creates unrealistic expectations out of their customers which the host is unable to fulfill.

If you do your homework, and research many hosts, ask questions, and are realistic about what your real needs are, then you will find yourself with a host you like, a plan that fits you, at a reasonable price.

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