- Falling for the price trap
Yes, many different companies offer free web hosting services at no cost. However, a common set back is most of these free web hosting plans do not offer sufficient features you need for your website and/or most of them force you to place advertisements on your website.
- Inexperienced reseller
Hosting with a reseller is not a bad thing. However, you need to do extensive research - sometimes a reseller is very good all around but inexperienced when it comes to scripts and server environments.
- Not clearly defining your requirements
You should keep a list of what resources your website needs and add to that list as it grows. This will make it easier when you need to upgrade your web hosting services in the future.
- Forgiving a host's bad or limited website
If a web hosting provider cannot or would not take the time to put together an informational website for their own business, most likely they won't be too concerned about yours either. Look out for cookie cutter websites.
- Putting all eggs in one basket
If you manage several websites, it may seem like a good idea to have everything in one account. You can simplify your billing and get a better deal. But that's not always the case. If your websites generate income and they are all interconnected, having all of them down at the same time is bad.
- Not keeping a record of their contact information
Many of us are satisfied with email, forum and live support. But when your web hosting provider is down for days, including their own site, you won't be able to contact them at all if you don't have any records of their telephone number.
- Relying on host backups
Always keep your own backups, even if your web hosting provider performs backups as well. It happens far too often - a customer's website goes down indefinitely and they couldn't put the website on another web hosting provider because they didn't have any backups of their own.
- Trusting your host to have the latest software
New software or latest patches are meant to plug security holes. Check with your web hosting provider what versions they are running and how often they make updates before you purchase web hosting services from them.