For years, technology companies have followed the “one spec rule” where they push one feature of their product to help increase sales. Camera manufacturers make a big song and dance about how many pixels their cameras have whilst TV manufacturers point out the importance of the size of the screen, it seems that customers ignore things such as the components and specification.
Web hosting, in some ways, is similar but it is not something that is commonly purchased by consumers but there is no real “one spec rule” as customers tend to focus on two or three features that are important to them in order for them to compare it to other products. As everyone knows website hosting is a critical element to the performance of your website but it’s also worth looking at factors which also play a huge part in the speed and performance of your website.
Web hosting is more of a specialised purchase which means that customers are likely to carry out research and take notice of reviews. However, as data such as specs and features are made clearer the experience will differ to others therefore, all of the information is only helpful up to a certain point and many believe that all web hosting is the same but this is not the truth. When different web hosting companies are compared there are many different factors that are varied and the list below offers an example of this:
- The Data centres are likely to be located differently and with different setups.
- There is likely to be different hardware and different specifications
- The staffing is likely to vary, ranging from the number of staff they have down to the experience they have
- They will all have different policies which will mean that they have different priorities.
- Systems will be varied and how they are managed will be different.
This is a list of only a small amount of factors that play a part in the service you are likely to receive. However, what if the factors are different even within the same company? If you have ever looked for reviews then you will often see a huge contrast from one review to another. One will mention how bad the company is whilst someone else will say how great they are so how can both reviews be true?
It is simply because you are adding more factors and investigate further into what they offer. The reality is that all web hosting is different.
One person could be using a brand new high-specked hosting server with ample resources and an excellent configuration with no need to ever call support but when you do raise a query the support is excellent. This of course leads to a great experience and a good rating. However, another person could be with the same company and they could be allocated a random server that is old and unpredictable and causes problems. After his angry complaint to customer services they state that the problem he is having is down to his ISP and there is nothing they can do to help resolve the issue so he decides to give the company a bad rating but the truth is, that it is all down to pure luck.
This luck can be influenced to some extent because a web host could purchase new servers or they could purchase a batch of expensive servers that have a fault. They could even have an in-house support team that are fully trained or they may choose to outsource their work. Regardless of how you look at it, there are a whole multitude of factors that play a part. These factors can work in your favour or they could work against you but there is nothing to suggest that all web hosts are the same because the fact of the matter is – they are not!