If you are looking to purchase web hosting for your San Francisco Bay Area business I recommend you arm yourself with as much information as possible because all hosting companies are not created equal. In this article I am going to address the growing trend of cheap web hosting companies offering claims of “unlimited bandwidth”. Most hosting companies offer the same features, so in an attempt to attract new customers they make claims of “unlimited bandwidth” and/or disk space, the the two main elements of any hosting plan. Disk space is the amount of space allotted to you on a server to store your website files, email, and any backups. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is transferred to a user’s computer after visiting your website. Bandwidth and disk space cost money and web hosting companies pass that cost along to you. Disk space has become increasingly cheaper, but the cost of bandwidth has remained relatively the same or has increased a little.

Web hosting companies bet that most of the websites they host will not require a lot of bandwidth, but for the ones that do you can be sure that they are not going to absorb the cost. If you believe your website will have lots of visitors either now or in the near future or if your website includes lots of video or audio files, you need to read your hosting contract carefully so as not incur any hidden charges. If you are not sure how much bandwidth your website will require there are tools online that can help you make an educated guess, just Google “hosting bandwidth calculator”.

In the next Web Hosting article I will discuss the importance of knowing how your hosting company protects your website data from loss or corruption (data backups).

Bay Area Web Hosting Company