Website Hosting – Read The Fine Print

Website Hosting – Read The Fine Print

Website hosting is the service that you require to store your website files so your website can be viewed on the Internet.  Companies provide servers that are configured to host your website, usually for a monthly or annual fee.  It is not uncommon for web designers to provide hosting for your website that you have them build.  There are many options available for web hosting and on the face of it, they seem the same, but it is important to take the time to read the fine print, you may be surprised.

The most popular service on offer from web hosting providers is the website builder.  Included in your website hosting or as an added option, the website builder promotes itself to be simple enough for your to build your own website.  This may be so for some people, others really struggle with the concept once they begin.  Some web designers also follow this concept in that they build your website and host it on their framework promoting that the framework makes it easy for them to update their own website.  This is great, have your website built by a professional and easily update it through their content management framework.

Okay, so what is the downside to this?  If you use a website builder to build your website and you later decide you would like to change your web hosting provider, you can’t take your website with you.  Because you have built your website on the web hosts framework, it can’t be backed up and moved to another provider, but you can take your content with you.  This is also the same for some web designers who have built your website.  Even though you have paid to have your website built you may be in fact leasing it monthly rather than just paying for your website hosting.

When choosing a web hosting provider, it is important to read the fine print and ask questions about their service.  Keep these questions in mind:

• If you build and host my website, is there the option for me in the future to back it up and move it to another website hosting provider if I choose?
• If I use your website builder option, can I backup my website and move it to another website hosting provider if I choose?

 Make sure you do your research and find a website hosting provider that offers what you need, not what they think you need.