I'm new on this, but I have a small business for 6 years ,so I built a web site and now I'm in need of a web host.Wow what a business! Sorry but all of you's (web host)
need to go back to school and start again you my get it right the next time.
I have dever dealt with any other business before of your
level, do you read your own web hosting features and then your terms and conditions? or you just post them and hope that we are not going to read them too.
Well I did and here is a sample, UNLIMITED BANDWITH ALLOWED PER MONTH "not" or (x GB) "not" and then you read the rules
and conditions under abuse of unlimited traffic,(sites using 30% of system resources for longer then 60 seconds)will be disabled within x days or billed $x /1GB/month.
Hello! you wrong, do you go to a store order a large (?)you pay for a large, they give you a small one and you accept it just so you won't abuse the size limit? not.
Then why do you espect us to accept this DEALL?????
I would like to see the real deall like "We allow 3GB and not 10GB just to make it loock good,give me what you real can and let me use it I pay for it I don't wont it for free!I think the Better Business Bureau or the Government should something about you's! and the way you go it might just happen
Thanks

Tony!
Unfortunately alot of hosts do offer that unlimited phrase, when offering their services...Please note: Not all do that!
You are on the right track when you see this and speak up OR know not to fall for such a thing.
We've always posted against any host offering such things as
unlimited bandwidth or disk space.
Its an unfair marketing scheme that some hosts will try to pull off!
Alwayssssss go woth a host who states clearly on their website how much disk space and transfer you are allowed each month! Im quite surprised after visiting several forums over the years, that there are still people who LOOK for OR defend a host for offering unlimited bandwidth..a few months go by, and its pretty common to see the same person post how their site got deleted for "reaching the max in that UNlimited plan"
We have to pay for bandwidth..so its not something that one should offer so freely..it just doesnt exist!
Good luck in your search...are there any specific features you are looking for in a host?

I agree with you completely that unlimited bandwidth is impossible and that any company advertising unlimited bandwidth is, at minimum, misleading their customers, and at worst is committing outright fraud.

However, one portion of your message did concern me, and that was the portion about the system resources. It is very important to know that system resources and bandwidth are two very different things and have very little to do with each other. Every hosting company, regardless of what their bandwidth limitations are, will also have limitations on system resource usage. It's a quality of service issue.

Bandwidth is mostly a cost issue - there's almost no limit to the amount of bandwidth a hosting company can obtain if they are willing to pay for it. System resources, on the other hand, is a very inflexible, limited thing. System resources relates to the CPU and RAM that is running the web server where your web site is on. In most cases it is not easy for a provider to upgrade their CPU and RAM (most providers already run dual-processor systems with half a gig or more of RAM - upgrading beyond that simply isn't necessary).

The system resource limitations are placed there as a quality of service concern. Remember that when you are hosting your web site on a shared hosting provider, the individual web server that your site is located on will typically have between 100 and 500 web sites running on the same web server. If one single web site uses more than their fair share of the server's resources, that negatively impacts the server's ability to serve all of the other sites on the server.

To put it into a "retail" perspective (since you used the sandwich shop example), let's pretend that a web server is like a big movie theater. The movie theater might have 200 seats for tonight's show. Let's say the movie theater sold out all 200 tickets - but one guy went in, and instead of sitting in his seet, he laid down in one row, thus taking up 6 seats in the theater, even though he'd only purchased one ticket. That leaves five other people with no place to sit and watch the movie, even though they also bought a ticket and paid the same price you did.

I think you will agree that in situations such as that, the theater management has the right to make the guy leave. And the resource usage limitations on a shared hosting account are done for much the same reason - to ensure the quality of service for all of a hosting provider's customers, not just one.

So please realize that when you see limitations on resource usage, those are really pretty much unrelated to bandwidth entirely, and even the good companies that provide a firm limit on the amount of bandwidth a site is allowed will also have limits on the amount of system resources that site is allowed as well.

Thanks,

Jason

Tony,

You're absolutely right about unlimited bandwidth. The word "unlimited" as it relates to many things (bandwidth, storage, emails accounts etc) has been discussed at length here and on other forums.

Generally nothing is unlimited, especially bandwidth and system resources such as storage and emails. Those things cost the host to provide and no host can afford to be truly unlimited (and hope to stay in business). There is always a limit. Perhaps a very high limit you may never come even close to reaching, but there is still a limit.

I agree it's cheesy of a host to say "unlimited" whatever and then bury in their TOS the terms of the unlimited-ness.

My advise would be that if things like bandwidth and storage are important to you search out those hosts that give real numbers for those things.

Good luck. And please remember that a few bad apples don't spoil the bunch.

Thanks for the replies,I still do not get this system resources think,how I'm suppose to know when I cross the line? Like the way I see it web hosting is a service just like Phone Hydro...and I don't mind if I pay for what I use.
But with hosting is "suprise you just cross line!" What I need is the ability to now and be able to control how much I use.Someone should find a way to meter the usage and chagre accordingly.

Hi,
Im just speaking from our setup at Hostcaters.
Our clients are equipped with a control panel that monitors the disk space, and also bandwidth transfer.
Its a nice setup as you can keep track of it daily.
Alot of this really just depends on the host. Ive heard stories (quite common) where accounts just get deleted, or shut down immediately.
You will probably benefit from going with a smaller company.
Keep us posted :-))

IMO a good host shouldn't shut you down if you go over the limit. You may get billed/charged for the extra usage so you do need to monitor things if you thing you're getting close to the limits.

Personally I'm just happy to see people like Tony rail against the U-word. If there were a lot more Tony's in the world maybe these hosts would finally stop swinging that word around. The day I find a truly unlimited provider is the day I set up Google MkII I think they use 50 servers - might be more... not bad for $20 a month

so Tony, make as much noise as you can - with luck more will join you, and we can finally get rid of that nasty word.

Greg Moore

To reply to your view of what web hosting is. Shared web hosting isn't like telephone service. Telephone service is a dedicated service, not a shared service. Shared hosting is more like an old-style party telephone line that was shared with other people. It is a less expensive option than dedicated service, just like party lines were. If one of the people using that line didn't respect the needs of the other people to use the line as well, then the phone company received complaints and the person was required to get a dedicated phone line.

When you use shared web hosting, you are sharing server space and resources with other customers. You must understand that shared hosting requires that you be courteous to the other customers sharing that server with you. If your site uses more than your fair share of the server resources, their sites are impacted adversely, and the server can crash, affecting uptimes, and causing expensive outages for providers who offer SLA's based on uptime.

Shared hosting isn't for every site, it's a cost issue for businesses who cannot find room in their budget for a dedicated server, or for sites that don't really need a dedicated server because their resource consumption is low.

If you're talking about the search engine, then you'll need more than 8,000 machines.....

It's probably just too easy to get into the web hosting business, and it's probably too common that web hosting companies are founded and run by technical people who don't have a true understanding of effective and ethical marketing practice.

On the other hand, there are good and bad companies in every industry. The problem is, a few bad apples in this industry, and we're all labelled as crooks and frauds.

Some hosts develop their web site and policies so that potential customers are able to come on board with clear and accurate expectations (even though most customers never read them). Others try to inflate customer expectations to a point beyond what they're capable of delivering, hoping that (mostly imaginary) switching costs will force even unsatisfied customers to stay with them. You're right to be disgusted with the latter group, but please don't paint us all with that broad brush.

I don't know that the web hosting industry as a whole is a lot worse than a lot of other industries. Anybody tried figuring out long distance carriers lately?

James

P.S. When you do get your web site up and running, you'll be glad that your host limits resource usage to a "normal" level. Even if you don't know it, that's why your web site is accessible by your visitors.