Five Signs Your Hosting Service is Letting You Down

The thing about web hosting providers is the way in which you can’t really tell if they’re letting you down until something potentially detrimental has crept into the equation. Or to put it another way, by the time you realise something is up, chances are at least some damage will have been done.  Of course, the best thing to do in all such instances is nip these problems in the bud by having a stern word with those on the other end of the deal, or perhaps jumping ship and heading for new waters. The very worst thing you can do is ignore or underestimate the severity of what may on the surface appear to be a minor niggle – these can soon add up and cripple whatever it is you’re trying to do.Here’s a quick look at the five most common danger signs something is rotten in the ranks:Customer Service DelaysIf you’ve never encountered any major problems so far, chances are you won’t have reacted too badly to delays in customer service responses. You submit a ticket with a vague query, you get a response after 72 hours and you go along your merry way. However, what if said query was in fact something of a much more urgent nature that your website’s very operation depended on – could you really sit around twiddling your thumbs for three days? Of course not, so if you’ve got even the slightest suspicion their customer service isn’t what you’d call rapid, you might want to rethink things.Unlimited Meaning Anything ButIt’s a hugely common complaint – promises of unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage space meaning nothing of the sort. However, just because it’s common does not mean that it’s acceptable – if you are paying for a service and not receiving it, something is up…it’s as simple as that. So if you’re being throttled or limited in any way and you shouldn’t be, ask yourself why you’re accepting being lied to.Inconsistent AnalyticsIf it’s become apparent that website traffic is all over the place and you really cannot establish any patterns of where the problem lies, chances are it could be your hosting provider. It’s never wise to jump to conclusions of course, but if you eliminate all other causes of things being up, down and all over the place, it could very well be a problem not with the traffic itself, but with your site’s accessibility.Any Downtime At AllDowntime can be fatal and a guarantee of 99.99% uptime is the very minimum you should be happy to settle for. As such, any downtime that you can actually notice is completely unacceptable these days and a big reason for considering a switch.Rising PricesIf anything, your costs should actually be going down year after year if you are not upgrading your service packages and demanding more of your provider. As such, if you find you’re paying more than before and there doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for this, chances are there isn’t one!