The Web Hosting Review

As found on their website:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/unlimited/

You need to read the fine print.

What do “unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage” mean?

It’s pretty straightforward: Customers who use Yahoo! Web Hosting appropriately have access to unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage.

What is appropriate usage?

Yahoo! Web Hosting is designed to serve the web hosting needs of small, independently owned and operated businesses in the United States. It is not intended to support the greater web hosting needs of large enterprises or internationally based businesses.

Yahoo! Web Hosting is also a shared web hosting service, which means a number of customers’ web sites are hosted from the same server. To ensure that Yahoo! Web Hosting is reliable and available for the greatest number of users, a customer’s web site usage cannot adversely affect the performance of other customers’ sites.

Additionally, the purpose of Yahoo! Web Hosting is to host web sites, not store data. Using an account primarily as an online storage space for archiving electronic files is prohibited.

So what does “unlimited” mean, really?

Disk space:You can now create as large a site as you like (you won’t face an upper limit, or “ceiling”), but we will place some constraints on how fast you can grow. In other words, you can add as much content as you want, but maybe not all at once. The vast majority of our customers’ sites grow at rates well within our rules, however, and will not be impacted by this constraint.

Data transfer:In most cases, if you use our service appropriately, visitors to your web site will be able to download and view as much content from your site as they like. However, in certain circumstances, our server processing power, server memory, or anti-abuse controls could limit downloads from your site.

You can also upload as much as content as you like each month, subject only to the rules that control how fast your site can grow (see above).

Email storage:Unlimited email storage gives normal email account users like yourself an opportunity to not have to worry about hitting a storage limit. You can save your correspondence and never worry about having to delete older messages to make room for more.

However, the purpose of unlimited storage isn’t to provide an online storage warehouse. Usage that suggests this approach gets flagged by Yahoo! Business Email’s anti-abuse controls.

As found on Yahoo!’s website February 7th 2008.  Check the link above for the latest updated version.

Here is a great article on web hosting companies that provide large disk or bandwidth for low cost. Buyer beware.

The web hosting industry is a competitive market. Naturally, when you get into such a competitive niche you see companies that are struggling. Sometimes, they are struggling so much that they will tell you what you want to hear just to make a few bucks off of you.

These people are the “Unlimited Bandwidth and Unlimited Disk Space” companies. If you have not heard it elsewhere, please allow me to be the first. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. Typically the way it works is that a large corporation will rent out small chunks of the bandwidth they are capable of providing to smaller companies. These smaller companies turn around and do the same to the web hosts. These web hosts, again, do the same separation method and sell these small “chunks” to you based on your needs.

These unlimited web hosting companies are banking on the idea that you will never use more than what you might would have used if you were using a package from a web host that does not offer these types of promises. There are several problems that can be caused when running into these types of promises.

A severely unmonitored web hosting company can end up having a customer use up all the space that they were allotted by their datacenter. In this case, every person using the server (all clients under the web host) will have their websites go down because the datacenter will either shut off the server when the web host exceeds their limit. If that does not occur then they will charge the web host with huge bandwidth fees. The end result will quickly lead to the web hosting company being upside down in their profits and they will likely be forced to close the company. The end result being the same, your website being offline.

If the web hosting company that offers the myth of “unlimited bandwidth” does monitor well, they will shut your website down if you do exceed what their own limitations are for your website. They will not risk having their server shutdown or losing their other customers simply because you are using too much bandwidth. Therefore, no one actually provides real unlimited bandwidth. It simply is not possible.

As for web space (commonly referred to as disk space), the same concept applies. When you buy a computer, you probably always look at the specifications that it has. One of the primary ones will always be your hard drive. Servers are exactly the same way; each server can only hold a certain amount of capacity. Just like bandwidth, they are banking on the idea that you will only use a very limited amount of web space (most websites do). If you fill their web server up, more than likely they will not resort to adding another hard drive to keep you as a $4.00 per month customer. They will tell you that you need to find another web host or pay extra for all the space you are using. These companies simply cannot stay in business at this rate. There is a reason why all of the biggest web hosting companies have limitations on their shared plans. It is not because they simply want to; it is to protect every single client they have from the dreadful downtime you want to avoid when you are a web host. As well, reputable companies will always want to be forthcoming in what you are allowed to use. Every web host has limitations on your usage, it is simply a matter of if they are willing to show them to you or not.

If you are running an online business, be sure to go with a reputable host that does not offer these unfulfilling promises. When choosing to run an online business such as ecommerce, you will want to ensure that your website stays online. One way of doing this is to simply stay away from companies that make false promises.

Travis Tracy is President of TT Enterprises: http://www.TravSolutions.com

TravSolutions.com provides Ecommerce Web Hosting and Web Development Solutions. Our experienced staff can be helpful at all stages in becoming successful or continuing a successful path in online business. TravSolutions has experience in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and other factors that play a major role in your businesses success.

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