Why Should You Avoid Cheap Web Hosting?

Nadejda Milanova

Nadejda Milanova · 09th August 2021·Website Hosting

Updated on 05th July 2022

Why Should You Avoid Cheap Web Hosting?

When it comes to choosing a web host for your websites, it is very important to consider multiple factors. If you are starting with a new website, you may be wondering about the best place that you need to host your website. There are many inexpensive options available that can help you save money, but there is more you need to know to make sure that your website will be fast and secure.

When choosing web hosting, it’s important to consider aspects such as security, speed, and reliability. Moreover, there’s another factor that often gets overlooked — cheap web hosting might end up costing you more than you think.

It’s a common belief that cheap web hosting is equal to a bad web hosting. There are many low-cost hosting providers and it may be tempting to try them out. However, you may end up with a poor quality service that soon fails or causes you more trouble than it’s worth.

With such a wide variety of website hosting options and pricing models available, it can be difficult to know how to choose between them. So here are the reasons why cheap web hosting can be a bad idea.

Cost is not the most important thing

webb hosting

Remember that while web hosting costs are important, they’re not the most important thing to consider when it comes to finding a WordPress host. That’s because once you get into more advanced WordPress topics, you’ll find there are many more attributes to take into account when exploring a web host.

As many of you know, the big league means a lot of work. It’s important to have all the right tools and features to be successful. Most importantly, a reliable web host that can provide automatic core updates, DDoS protection, managed hosting, integrated CDN, and a host of others. You won’t regret spending a little more to get started with the very best!

The problem with cheap web hosts. If you’ve somehow managed to get here without doing research, well...you’re in luck! To put it quite simply, it’s best to avoid cheap web hosts (you’ll find out why shortly).

Resource Limitations

When you host a website, you're relying on your web hosting company to provide sufficient resources so that the website stays up and running. Some people assume that cheaper hosts are always better, but that's not true. Cheap web hosts will use lower-quality servers or cram as many users as possible into those servers. As a result, each user is limited in the resources they can use for their website.

For example, let’s say we have a server with 8 GB of RAM, and we stuff 100 people in it. Each person will get roughly 80 MB of RAM. (8 x 1000 / 100), which is pretty decent. If you increase that number to 1500 people, each person will get only about 13 MB of RAM. That’s not so great. What problems can arise?

  • WordPress runs on PHP. We’ve established that, right? With the low memory limit of PHP, WordPress is limited and can’t do as much as it needs to. For example, when you install a new theme or intensive plugin, it will fail. This will result in the dreaded white screen of death.

  • When your database is overloaded, it can impede site performance. In all probability, you can only have one WordPress installation and your database will be too busy to serve up information quickly. As a result, queries will take a long time and performance will be degraded.

As your website becomes more successful, the site will be slower due to limited resources. To overcome this, it will be difficult for you to speed up the site or increase your time to first byte. Additionally, overcrowded servers will lead to outages. When too many sites compete for the same limited resources, your server will go down, and your site will be inaccessible for an unknown amount of time.

Hard Drive

Data is precious. It's stored on servers--not desktops--in order to ensure its safety and performance. Servers are more expensive than their desktop counterparts, but they're worth the cost. They have greater reliability, faster performance, and longer average life. A server disk will eventually degrade and run out of space. Hard drives can last a long time. But, eventually, they’ll fail. Standard wear and tear means that after a certain point, the hard drive will not function efficiently, and may quickly fall below acceptable performance levels. When this happens, the hard drive should be discarded.

Cheap webhosts are not as cost-effective as they may seem. Cheaper webhosts typically use old, downgraded hard drives and have no plans to make hardware upgrades.

When a hard drive has reached its end of life, it will fail and take your website data with it. This usually means your site will be at best broken or at worst down. If you’ve been maintaining backups, you might be able to get things up and running again as soon as possible. But if all your backups from your host are gone, this would be troubling. You’d have to rely on support from your host when it comes to restoring your site, which could be a hassle for you if you’re limited in options.

Limited or No Backups

WordPress should be backed up regularly, but new users often forget. There are many types of backups, but most people rely on automated features to maintain their site. When a backup is created, it's stored by the web host. Every good host will take regular backups of your website and retain them up to 30 days.

When I set up a new website, I always make sure I'm working with a company that offers affordable and reliable web hosting. Backup is often the most important aspect of web hosting. A good host should offer simple site backups as a standard feature. I also make sure they offer unlimited storage space so the backup doesn't run out of space and deletion dates far into the future so I can hold on to them for a long time.

What if You Don’t Have a Backup?

It's important to always have a recent and complete backup of your website. If anything goes wrong with it (server issues, plugin conflicts, or something else), you'll be able to go back. If you haven’t been taking backups and your web host hasn’t either, you could be in trouble. That's not where you want to be, so make sure to take care of it quickly.

Bad Support

Response time for a ticket is going to be slow. You and other customers are all likely experiencing the same issue, which makes it even more difficult to get help. For example, I’ve seen free host sites that rely on a contact email. The first sentence of the original is paraphrased rather than rewritten.

If you can get past the host limitations, the next hurdle is support. If you are trying to increase PHP memory, the support team may not be able to help with even fairly simple hosting issues. I'm not sure how complicated issues will be resolved, but I don't think they will come into question.

Hosting, a core service for any website, can be confusing for many people. There’s not a lot of incentive for a cheap or free hosting company to invest time or money into helping you. You’re pretty much on your own. If you can’t find a solution by Googling it or asking the Reddit community, you may have to hire someone to help. It may be a waste of time and money if the issue was just bad hosting.

Poor Security

Security

WordPress security is an often overlooked aspect of websites, usually by novices. Cheap web hosts have a lack of security measures for WordPress sites. Basic firewalls, no malware protection, and very little protection from DDoS attacks leave your site open to a host of attacks.

The malware issue

It's been a major concern for businesses and organizations who use unsecured sites. Hackers can find security loopholes in the database and insert malicious code, leading to a malware infected domain. Google flags your domain as a malware distribution point, and your SEO rankings are as good as gone.

If your server is running on a single database with no backups, a single malware attack could lead to the whole server being infected. That means any of the sites that are hosted on that database could be affected. And if you're hosting someone else's site and they get attacked, you might also suffer the consequences.

How to protect your website

One simple way to protect your site is by installing a plugin. You can also take some other steps to strengthen the security of your site. WordPress has built-in security mechanisms, so it might be smart to install the simple website security checklist plugin.

It's important to keep WordPress up to date, with the help of themes and plugins. This includes cloud backups, SSL, limited login attempts, and 2-factor authentication. This includes keeping WordPress up to date, along with themes and plugins. This includes cloud backups, SSL, limited login attempts or 2-factor authentication.

To protect your website, iThemes Security Pro and Jetpack Backups are two highly-recommended plugins. The plugins also provide an added layer of security. There are many more plugins to choose from so you won’t have to break the bank for protection. This article provides information about how other businesses can use online customer service to reduce bounce rates, shopping cart abandonment, and shopper dissatisfaction.

Conslusion

Cheap webhosts won't cut it. They are a disaster waiting to happen. We must be extra cautious when selecting a web host so we can get what we need. So before you start arguing, keep in mind there's a huge difference between cheap and affordable.

Managed hosting means you have less to worry about. A reputable, experienced companywith a good track record in WordPress will take care of your WordPress site for you.

Nadejda Milanova
Nadejda Milanova

An experienced Content creator in the field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and WordPress. A true proffesional with a Master's degree focused on journalism.

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