Whilst writing reviews of website hosts I have seen a lot of web hosting comments. Users who do post web hosting comments are a small minority of hosting customers and many of these are positive. However there are still many negative comments about website hosts. Whilst some hosts deserve this, many complaints about the large hosting companies result from unrealistic expectations and a failure to read their Terms of Service.

You cannot expect a top quality service for free so I would always recommend going for one of the top companies like Bluehost, HostGator etc. However, even with these companies you have to realistic about what you get for $5 per month. You should expect:

• your pages to load fast

• to see very little downtime

• to be able to access support 24/7 including by telephone.

Web hosting comments I have read tend to show the following as areas which cause complaints about hosting companies:

Backups

It is normal for hosting companies' Terms to make users responsible for their own backups. Hosting companies do usually backup their shared servers periodically (unlikely to be daily) but they do not accept any responsibility if data is lost.

We have to accept that hardware failures can affect anyone and in rare cases you might find your site restored to an older version. The answer is to backup yourself as writing comments will not help, even if it does make you feel better.

Domain Names

Some hosting packages include a domain name. What is often not clear to users is that there is a charge for the domain name if you cancel. So even if there is a money back guarantee there will be a deduction for the domain name (but you do get to keep the domain name). I have seen web hosting comments where users have got very angry about this calling their host "crooks".

Promotional Offers

Another issue that generates web hosting comments is the low promotional offers that get people to sign up but are not repeated on renewal. This is a perfectly acceptable way for companies to recruit customers but I have seen websites that don't make it clear that the offer relates to the first payment only. The result is negative web hosting comments about the company.

Site Builder Software Most hosts provide site building software as part of their packages but this is another cause of negative web hosting comments. What is often not understood by users is that if they use this facility it can be difficult to move the site to another host (i.e. it locks you into the host providing the software).

If you understand the above points you will avoid these problems and hopefully be in a position to make positive comments about your website hosting company.