Before launching your business website, you will need to choose a reliable hosting provider. Your website’s host will hold all the website files for you and make your website available for all the world to see. There are plenty of web host companies, but not all of them perform well. Just like any service provider, there are some who provide bad service while there are also those that provide good service.
Since a web hosting company is necessary for your site to be reachable online, you need to make sure to pick a good one. If the web host isn’t efficient, then your website’s information will not get through to your target market and vice versa. Here are a few tips on how to protect your website from a web host that offers poor service.
Take a Free Trial
Always look for a web host that offers a free trial. Having a free trial allows you to test a web host’s service performance and check if they meet your requirements or not. Usually, most reputable hosting companies offer some form of free trial because they are confident of the quality of their services. Although not all web hosts offer a free trial, it pays to get one that does. After testing the services of a web host, you are now free to decide whether you want to continue with their services or find a better one.
Most hosts that offer trials usually offer a one month or 15-day trial. That’s definitely enough time to test out their services and see if their service truly works as advertised on their website.
Avoid Registering Your Primary Domain With Your Web Host
Another tip is to avoid registering your primary domain with your web host. Even though it might seem convenient to register your domain name at the same place where you would purchase hosting, it’s actually a bad idea because it puts your business and your website’s safety at risk.
In the event of you not being happy with the host’s service you will have to go through the complicated process of transferring not only your website’s files to a different host, you will also have to transfer your domain name as well. And some hosts are known for making this process even more difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, if someone hacks your hosting account, they gain access to both your website’s files and your domain name as well which can have serious negative consequences.
Although it isn’t advisable to get a primary domain from your web host, you may get a secondary domain from them if they offer this kind of package to you. This secondary domain will allow you to experiment a bit with your website when you want to add more features. You can also use that domain to test out some SEO techniques and experiment without having to worry about annoying your visitors with constant experiments.
Review Which Payment Methods They Accept
Many web hosting companies allow you to set up an automated payment system for their hosting services. On one hand, this is convenient as it saves you from having to remember to pay your hosting bill. On the other hand, it can also lead to potential problems if you choose to migrate to a different host. Some hosting companies may continue to charge your credit or debit card long after you have cancelled their service. In that case, you will have to call your financial institution and have them block the payments going out and possibly reverting the charges. You might even find yourself needing a completely new card.
Instead of using a credit or a debit card, consider using online money transfer facilities such as PayPal or Alertpay. You can set up a corporate account and link them to your credit card or a bank account. It still gives you the convenience of automated payment but without revealing your actual financial information. On top of that, you can easily cancel any recurring payments from the account management area yourself.
Regularly Change Passwords For Your Website
This is one of the things that a lot of people really take for granted — regularly changing passwords. Although this is a pretty simple and obvious security measure, so many people ignore it. Any website has the chance of getting hacked no matter how powerful the security is. It’s even worse if the hacker comes from your web host. Even if this person uses a brute force attack to get in, he or she can have all the time he or she needs since you don’t usually change your password.
The significant lesson here is to update your passwords regularly and make them hard to guess. Use a combination of words, numbers, and symbols so that the hackers will have a hard time trying to figure out your passwords.
Download a Good Anti-Virus
Just because you’re not hosting your website, doesn’t mean you should ignore the security of your computer. Many hackers will use malicious programs like bots and viruses that attack your computer to gain access to your sensitive information. If your computer is not protected, they can easily hack your website and insert malicious code. Download a good anti-virus software and install it on your computer so that whenever you access the Internet, your computer can ward off unwanted attacks.
Back Up Your Website
Lastly, back up your website regularly. If your web host fails for one reason or another, at least you won’t be losing anything in the process. You must always be prepared for the event that your web host’s server might crash or that your web host will suddenly close. If that happens, you have to have a backup for all of your data; otherwise, your business won’t be able to run again. If you have backed up all your data, you can just replicate everything when you move on to another server.
Conclusion
These are some of the things that you can do to protect your business from a bad web host. It’s not being pessimistic or saying that all web hosts are out to get people. It is a preventive measure as well as common sense because choosing a bad web host can happen whether we like it or not. The tips above are precautionary measures whenever you meet a web host that is unscrupulous. Keep the above tips in mind and protect your site from any possible damage.