In the ultra competitive web hosting industry, anything that you can do to get a customer is fair game. Companies offer insanely cheap hosting, free domain names, search engine optimization, website development and unlimited resources. It has become such a dog eat dog world nowadays that companies are offering unlimited bandwidth and disk space for as low as $5 a month.
People flock to these web hosting companies and buy up hosting plans left and right without even thinking or reading the terms. Some people plan to genuinely use the hosting plan while others have different ideas. There are those that assume that unlimited really does mean unlimited. However, people quickly find that their account becomes either suspended or permanently banned because they did not read the fine text. You may be wondering how these companies can offer unlimited resources for such a low price right? The truth is that they can't. There is no hosting provider that can offer this kind of deal because if they did they would quickly go out of business.
It's All In The Fine Print
Read the fine print of many companies and you will find that they have set limits on what they exactly mean and what you can actually do with the account. You may decide to purchase an unlimited web hosting plan to store and backup your files in case something goes wrong with your computer. So you start to upload your files and everything is going fine until one day you go to access your account and you can't get in. Or maybe the host was kind enough to send you an email stating why your account has been blocked. More often than not it will be because they do not allow file hosting on their servers. But isn't having a web site on a server file hosting? Yes, but the files are being used in a different manner. Sticking files onto a server for backup or sharing them with your friends is a red flag with most hosting providers. This kind of activity causes a strain on the servers because of the files being constantly downloaded while at the same time possibly being illegal if you are sharing copyrighted content. If you want to store your files on a server there are companies that exist specifically for that.
Limited Unlimited?
Most unlimited plans do have a certain amount of bandwidth or disk space that you can actually use. While the hosting provider isn't going to be up front about it it does exist. Many people get sucked into thinking that they are getting a great deal when really all that they are getting is ripped off. When it comes down to the wire and you exceed the limits the host suspends or denies access to your account. This can become a critical issue if you have been using your account for keeping all your files backed up. However, you may get lucky and the host may consider granting you access to retrieve your files and they may even grant you access again to your account should you promise them that you won't do it again. But more often then not you will be out of a hosting account, out of money and out of the files that you had on the server.
So the next time you are out to purchase web hosting or if you are interested in purchasing it in the near future, remember to always read the fine print. It is usually stated within the Terms & Agreements and while it may not be something that you enjoy reading, if you read the fine print you will really know just what you are getting.
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