WARNING: 6 Web Host Marketing Gimmicks You Should Beware Of

As you might have already known, web hosting is a very competitive industry. There are thousands of hosting providers in the world and the number is still growing. As a result, tons of web hosting advertisements can be easily found both online and offline. Their sole intention is clear, they want to catch your attention and win your business.

Sometimes the offers on the advertisement are so attractive that you sign up straight. You could not wait to receive their free gift or their free software. Unfortunately, what turns out is disappointment. You never get what you thought you are getting. You feel cheated. Promotions still remain as promotions but the truth seems to be well covered up by the sales talk.

I consider that marketing tricks.

Here are 6 popular tricks used by web host providers that you should beware of. In fact they are not cheating. They are just presenting their products in such a way that we will not want to find out what is behind the promotions. Therefore it is our responsibility to find out ourselves.

Trick 1: Oversell

Overselling means the web host promises something they can never deliver. By offering unlimited storage and bandwidth, a web host oversells. I bet you have been seeing this offer everywhere haven’t you? Web host tends to offer unlimited storage and bandwidth in their hosting package. The usual response from the consumer is – Wow, I can store as much files as I want now! That’s cool! For you information, unlimited storage and bandwidth are IMPOSSIBLE! Web hosting is just like the hard disk in your desktop. Your hard disk has a storage limit, so does web hosting. So when a web host offers unlimited, they indeed mean unlimited BUT subjected to their term and conditions. The next question is what are the terms?

Trick 2: Cheap Pricing

With the fierce competition in the industry, pricing war has already begun. Always the price is printed BIG on the banners. $2.99/month, $1.99/month, $0.99/month. What the hell! Web hosting is so cheap nowadays! BEWARE! This is one of the tricks. Did you see the asterisk mark beside? Look carefully and you will notice the cheap price come with a long contract period. Albeit it remains cheap, but are you prepared to commit?

Trick 3: 24/7 Customer Support

Customer support is always our concern in picking a web host because they are the people we turn to whenever something goes wrong with our website. Thus 24/7 support is important. Apparently web host providers are aware of this too, thus 24/7 support is a must-have feature in their promotions banners. 24/7 means 24 hours, 7 days a week but have you ever thought that the support might not be 24/7? Who knows? Since most of us do not call them in the midnight. We will only find out the truth when we need them in the late night. Imagine the pain you are going to have that time.

In another hand, some hosting providers are so unethical that they provide fake contact information. From their website their support seems to be very comprehensive with telephone support, email support, live chat and etc. However when you give them a call, you realize that the number is not in service at all! But that is too late as you have stuck with them already.

Trick 4: Fake Testimonial

Besides, fake testimonials are possible. You will see there are many positive reviews in their website praising their service. Do not get your head in easily with the testimonials. It is possible that they are from their staff or friends or even worse, the web host makes it up. However, testimonials can remain true. The point is how you justify the trustworthiness.

Trick 5: Free Marketing/Advertisement Credit

$25 Google Adwords Credit, $25 Yahoo Credit, $50 MIVA Credit and other online advertising credits look like a bargain for your website because with the credit you can promote your website for free. The free credit does sound like free money doesn’t it? For your information you need to sign up a new account in order to claim the free credit. The credit is not applicable on existing account like mine! I was a victim then when I was deciding which host to go with between 2; 1 with the free credit and the other one without. Of cause I chose the first one and found out later the credit was useless. I seriously felt cheated. Although I understand what I paid is for the hosting service, not the free credit but somehow the free credit has involved in my decision making that makes me pi**ed off later on.

Who am I to blame? Myself, for not checking clearly.

Trick 6: 99.9% Uptime Guarantee

In order to boost the confidence of potential customers, web host providers tend to guarantee their uptime. They guarantee their hosting to be up for at least 99.9%.of the time. Well, there are total 2 catches here.

First, what is a 99.9% uptime? From a consumer point of view, that means my website will be up for 99.9% of the time right? Wrong! In fact the 99.9% uptime means the web host will be up for 99.9% only, not your website. I hope you can see the difference there. In order for the world to access our website, the server that stores the website must be up; the internet connections connected to the server must be up; your website is tuned correctly and is operating normally and etc. A web host only does their job by providing reliable hosting server. They will not hold responsible on your downtime due to internet connections or other factors.

Second, what does it mean by guarantee? Is it a verbal guarantee or a black and white guarantee? Some web host shout to have 99.9% uptime guarantee. Are they for real or for show? For your information, if a web host guarantees their uptime for show, they will only “promise” this and that but do not dare to put it in black and white. Get rid of this kind of web host! They lie! While those who really keep their words will state this guarantee in their Term of Service document clearly together with the compensations if they fail to meet it. That, I call guarantee.

These are some of the popular marketing tricks used by web host providers. Surprised to learn about them? In fact I do not really think a web host is that wrong (except for the fake contact information) for the above mentioned tricks. Because some hosts are really working hard to provide good service. The tricks are meant to attract attention and meant no harm to users. Furthermore they are not really hiding the truth and you can actually learn about it if you take a more careful look at the Term of Service document. However, these are the marketing tricks you should beware of! The marketing words sound promising but the truth might be otherwise. Therefore if we really fall into the tricks and are angry to find out later, we have only ourselves to blame.

Please do not lose confident on web hosting providers if you feel uneasy after reading this article. There are still many good and ethical web hosts who show their honesty and integrity in serving us. Check out my hosting reviews for the great name in the industry. They are all manually filtered and posses good reputation in the web host industry.