Web Hosting Business: Not for Rookies!
Posted by Mike | Filed under Make Money Online, Web Hosting
It seems that there are many people out there who want to make some quick money online, and they resort to “establishing” a web host. I would just like to tell you guys that the web hosting industry should NOT be entered by novices, unless you really want to make a fool of yourself. Even though I haven’t been involved in handling a web host whatsoever, I know that rock-solid experience IS required in order to run a web host smoothly.
A Truly Terrible Story
I was chatting with a friend (named Keur) on MSN just a few hours ago and he shared a horrible experience with me. He said that he was trying out different hosts for the past weeks, and he said that he only found two out of seventeen (hey, that’s only 11.76%!) hosts which met his expectations. His expectations weren’t actually that high — he only wanted to see some hosts which had good support and a good reputation. By the way, he didn’t check out the big players. He just looked at some offers on certain forums.
All those seventeen hosts that he checked had good reputation — according to the “testimonials”. Most of the testimonials actually said that the hosts had excellent support, yada yada yada. But Keur found out that fifteen of those hosts had terrible support and lacked knowledge about web hosting! Let me share one of his “live chat” sessions with you.
Keur: Hi. I would like to inquire about your pricing. Your order page says that your price is $5.95/month but in your homepage, it says that you offer your services for $3.95/month. Enlighten me pls.
Customer Support: Yes it is $3.95/month.
Keur: But when I try to order, I am being charged for $5.95.
Customer Support: No it’s $3.95/month, try again please.
Keur: Actually, I tried three times already but to no avail. Maybe there’s an error in your system?
Customer Support: Let me check. please wait a moment.- After around 20 minutes -
Keur: Hello? Are you still there? I would like to order from you but your order page still says $5.95/month
Customer Support: Sorry I can’t do anything about it.
Keur: What? You’re supposed to assist people, especially if they have pre-sales questions. Do you have a toll free number that I can call right now so I can understand your pricing better?
Customer Support: Wtf why the hell are you insulting me?
Keur: I am just trying to inquire about your pricing. It’s confusing since your homepage says that you offer your service for $3.95/month and when I try to order, I am being billed $5.95!
Customer Support: shut up loser we’ve had better clients than you.- The Customer Support Representative signs out of live chat. -
That was just one of his “terrible chat sessions”. I doubt that the host had other clients before… You see, there are really incompetent web hosts out there. Or maybe it’s just because they hire the worst customer support representatives. But wait, no, I don’t think so. My friend checked out 17 hosts, and he was dissatisfied with 15 of them!
What I’m trying to say here is that the number of incompetent hosts should not continue to increase. We can help by NOT starting a web host if we know that we aren’t competitive and experienced enough.
Starting a Web Hosting Business?
If you would like to start a web hosting business, make sure that you’re capable and you have at least some experience in the web hosting industry. Being a total newbie in the industry will not do anyone any good! Read the tips below before you start building your web host.
Be dedicated. I’m not talking about dedicated servers here. I’m saying that you should be dedicated to your work and you should exert much effort in everything that you do regarding your web hosting business. Remember, people create websites for different reasons — and establishing an online presence for THEIR business is one of those reasons.
If you’re not dedicated enough, your customers’ sites might not be accessible and they might lose potential buyers because of YOU. Other people’s businesses will be at risk if you aren’t dedicated enough in doing your work.
Don’t even think of taking your “future customers” for granted. You shouldn’t be like the customer support person in the live chat above. Who knows? You might be chatting with a big-time person who can refer hundreds of other customers to your service if you assist people very well.
You should be honest. Always. It’s quite disappointing to know that there are web hosts which create testimonials for the sole purpose of increasing sales. If you haven’t received a testimonial from your clients, then you can ask them politely for their feedback. No need to create your own testimonials. It only shows that you’re so desperate.
Another thing about honesty. There are hosts which offer money-back guarantees but they never give the money to the customers who requested a refund. You should make sure that when you offer these kinds of things, you give your customers what you guarantee.
That’s all for now folks. To those who are running web hosts out there, please share your expertise. 
Tell us how you run your business and how you treat your customers.
Yes, there are very few reliable hosts. Its not an easy business.
I read similar story on balkhis.com yesterday.
Thanks for the good post. I used to manage a hosting company with a friend, maybe I should have followed some of the tips that you gave.
What was the name of the host that Keur was dealing with ?
I kinda find it hard to believe a customer care rep would call him a ” loser ” unless the rep in question was the owner himself.
You need to stick with the biggies in the business if you need reliability.
Randomseo: I think the representative was the owner himself. I think it was a fairly new web host.
When you buy an inexpensive hosting package - customer support is a key moment in good services. If a support person treats you this way even before you make a payment - imaging what is going to happen when you have actually paid for your hosting services…
Web Hosting business isnt good anymore. Too many great web hosters are already on the web now. It isnt easy. Lots of promotion and even then 1 mistake and the client will make your name bad in the market. Thats true!
Thats the worst customer suport I have ever seen…. but does not look like real thing to me!!
Mayank: Yeah, the industry is saturated. Too saturated.
shoban: Unfortunately, it’s true. My friend really had that terrible conversation.
Web Hosting business isnt good anymore the markets too saturated
hey web hosting biz is not that good anymore….plus if i meet that customer service guy i’m sure that i’ll punch him/her rite at his/her nose…lol
za_rule: Hey, don’t be so harsh. A kick in the butt would do!
Yeah, too many webhosting services to even make a difference anymore. Gotta go about it different ways.
i know which hosting company sells rookie hostings.
i once tried to buy a domain from them and they rejected me because (1) my home address is in philippines, (2) my credit card is issued in the US and (3) my IP is pointing to China. well what can I do, my official residence is in the Philippines, I’m a Filipino citizen. My credit card is issued by my bank in California and I’m currently in China. Bad for them, they just rejected a panic blogger 
Blog Almighty: LOL what in the world was wrong with them? If I were that host, I would have accepted you!
Nice debate going on here.
I will recommend hostgator hosting.
This is a good post! I am in the webhosting industry myself, and I can tell you, it is not an easy business.
Some people start off thinking it is easy money. If you take a look at the webhosting section on the DP Forum, you will see there are many webhosting companies. Some are good, some aren’t. The customers have to be smart to check every detail about the company. Here is a site for those newbies who are buying hosting. http://dontgetscammed.net/
I agree with this 100% I bought a super reseller package from Godaddy just last year… and i worked with it for a few weeks and soon gave up. I was a noob in the industry and had absolutely no clue how to take things to the next level. I ended up selling the site and started new projects keeping what i learned in mind. Pre sell everything. Even if it’s not going to be a monetized site.. and do your homework. Get a feel for the market you are going to be venturing in. And most of all dont give up.
For some reason, I feel inspired to leave a comment?
haile: What in the world!?
Thanks for leaving a comment. Care to share your web hosting experiences?
Never try this kind of biz but AFAIK it’s already saturated.
@Blog Almighty
Your situation is quite “funny”, have you try to explain to them? Just curious
I agree with all of your points, more people should pay attention to the details if they want results.
Situations like that are most unfortunate.
Good hosts are more difficult to come by with each passing day. My experience has bee that while the more established players may be the most reliable, the bigger an organization is though, the less attention they spend on the individual clients.
Yet newer hosting startups don’t always understand how critical client care is. Mistreating one client is all it takes to start the bad PR ball rolling.
How rare it is then, to find a smaller host that offers reliability and dedicated care of individual clients.