Web Hosting Scams - This article is from "Web Hosting Choice"
In order to help you avoid getting scammed by the unscrupulous hosts that do exist, we have tried to put together the 'tricks' used by such companies to attract you:
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Unlimited bandwidth/space
It is simply impossible for a company to offer unlimited space or bandwidth use. As hosting companies and their associated technologies are themselves limited (i.e. bandwidth or hard disk space), unlimited offerings are usually just an advertising gimmick. Often you will find clauses embedded deep within the company's terms of service contract that negate the unlimited offering. The clauses are usually arbitrary, such as excessive CPU usage will be grounds for account termination.
Some hosts simply make it impossible to contact them! Even getting an email address so that you can get a hold of them can be a chore. Many cheap hosts prefer to keep communication down.
While cheaper plans may warrant an annual only plan, some hosts provide annual service exclusively. There is no guarantee that even though you have paid them for 12 months that you will get 12 months of service.
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Domain Registration not in your Name
Some devious web hosts, while offering to register your domain for you, legally register the domain in their own name! This means that if you try switching hosts, you will loose the domain name - legally it is their posession, and you have no claim on it.
A host should fully satisfy your needs – if not you should be able to close your account immediately.
If you sign up for free webspace you probably will not get these options:
Reliable server to prevent frequent down time.
Enough bandwidth (if your site draws too much traffic you may be charged extra).
A secure server so people can order products online.
A shopping cart or no secure ordering with it.
Backups of your files in case their server or your computer crashes.
A CGI-bin so you can install small programs like forms and guestbooks.
JavaScript compatible so you can install drop down menus, applets, etc.
E-mail forwarding or autoresponders
Server Side Includes (SSIs, allows the header, menu and footer to be drawn up into the page so you don't have to change multiple pages every time you add a new page to the site)
24/7 support in case your site develops a technical problem and goes offline.
You won't have access to their .htacces file and cannot set up a 301 redirect and thus search engines will not pick up your new url if you move (even with refresh code) and you'll have to shut down the old site and start over with the search engines.
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Web Design Templates Are Not Your Own Property
A lot of these dishonest hosting companies will also provide images and pre-designed web pages to enhance your site, or encourage you to use forms or other additions to your site that originate from their database. However, if you ever decide to leave that hosting company then you can't take those pages with you as they are copyrighted by that company, and the database driven pages will no longer work either. So, all you are left with are your own words or images that you put on your web site, i.e., you will have to start all over from scratch and hire someone to redesign your site.
Even if you decide to keep the same hosting service and hire a webmaster the webmaster may refuse to work on your site because these template driven sites are twice as hard to work on and take twice as long for a web designer and thus they have to charge twice the money to fix them (it takes a lot longer for a professional web designer to design a site from a browser based control panel than using HTML and uploading via FTP).
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Host's Open DNS Servers cause problems with domain poisioning
Domain Poisoning is a problem with your host's server that allows people to draw traffic away from your website as a result of Open DNS Servers, i.e., when people search for your major keywords in any search engine and click on the link to your site they are taken to another site. This only happens intermittently and no set pattern so hard to detect.
