How to Conduct a Background Check for Web Hosting Providers

With the explosion of web hosting providers emerging advertising free and unlimited features, it’s often a daunting task to opt for a legit provider that actually fulfills its promise to deliver reliable services.  There are several proactive steps that you can take to ensure the web host that has caught your eye is actually worth your time and resources for perusing to manage your web hosting needs including:

• Carbon Dating Web Hosting Services – Ok, not exactly actually carbon dating that goes back over centuries, however, it’s important to perform a WHOIS lookup to obtain information on when the web host was initially purchased and how long it’s been in business.
• Verify the address of the web host. Again this step can be performed by a simple WHOIS lookup to discover the domain name.
• WHOIS Lookup – DNS Stuff grants users access to IP WHOIS lookup.  This step allows you to locate the IP block and which data center is being utilized.  Also use this option to ensure your respective hosting company isn’t in fact hosting a server from a home ISP connection.
• Ping – To assess the time it takes you to access your host simply bring up the DOS, and then type “ping DomainNameofHost”.  In return you’ll receive a specific number which can be compared to various other hosts.   Additionally, it’s possible to inquire from the host to obtain the URL of a test file to verify download speed.
• Monitor traffic and growth potential.  Alexa is a vital tool for keeping track of traffic patterns.  Simply by visiting the website and typing in a specific address, you can easily obtain a general estimate on current and potential future traffic.
• Reviewing older web pages – Wayback Machine is an essential tool for accessing any older web pages from the hosting provider as well as if the domain name was used for other purposes.
• Spam Check – Although it’s rare, but often your hosting provider may be included on a spam list.  It’s very important to check to see if your web host is listed on a spam list, if so, you should opt for another web hosting provider.

While there are numerous of other ways to perform a background check of your own, the above points are excellent suggestions to serve as a general benchmark to weed out the shady web hosts from the more trusty-worthy and reliable web hosting providers.