Web Hosting Standards
Web Hosting Standards : Where the internet is concerned; the term “trading standards” has quickly come to be regarded as a typical oxymoron; with many, if not all, areas absolutely screaming out for some form of regulation. The get rich quick schemes of the past have been replaced with new ones, brought to us by none other than the web marketing gurus, although in some cases the term “snake oil vendor” would be much more appropriate.
Invariably focusing on affiliate marketing, quite often the only profit is derived from the sale of affiliate marketing tools. It is also worth noting that websites are fast becoming the must have accessory, a fact that has led to the proliferation of another type of marketing deviant.
Just as shops of old required land, websites, the bricks and mortar of the cyber world, need to be located somewhere, meaning that the greedy money grabbing landlord has now morphed into the website host. The first ruse, in a seemingly endless line of deception, is the advertised price of the hosting plan, which, although quoted on a monthly basis, requires a much longer period to qualify for the price advertised. Once your attention has been grabbed they then force the bait down with a whole host of life enhancing offers that you never realized you couldn’t live without, while never wasting the opportunity to boast about the level of technology and security of their servers.
If you have a few years to kill you may want to read their terms of service, then, having translated them into plain English, you will see how most of their promises disappear in a hail of smoke and mirrors. The deception doesn’t stop at the web host’s home page, their entire site is a cleverly orchestrated minefield of trickery, set up to extract your money; white elephants, the pushing of unwanted goods, virtual extortion and deductions after the fact, are all common features of their sites.
Quite often you will arrive at the web hosting site by way of a link from a hosting review site, however, do not, for one second, think that any review site will highlight a web host’s little misdemeanors. The standards of web hosts, along with those of their reviewers, are a world apart from everyone else’s. Obviously the deception is must deeper than what has been covered here, but given time any potential buyer can easily learn what to expect.
