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Does anyone know of a cheap, reliable webhost?
PHP5, MySQL, and all that.

Also, if preferably, unlimited up/down traffic, and a good cp.

This is obviously for a clan website.

Hostgator. Amazing host.

Please don’t post affiliate links on etf2l, thanks :)

Quoted from jason

I’ve used 1and1 for quite some time now for several sites.

There is a dl limit which is 10GB per month – as long as you aren’t hosting large files you should be ok with that.

Word of warning about 1&1 – cancelling an account can be nigh on impossible. They are regularly accused of continuing to charge users after an account has been ‘cancelled’, and after they are told to get f*cked – will continue to send letters and try to chase you with debt collection companies. I’ve seen so many horror stories about them it’s untrue.

Additionally their Support and Billing teams are both based in India, so good luck if you ever have a problem and want to speak coherently and quickly. Repeating yourself slowly over and over again is never fun for anyone.

With any webhost there will always be users who had a fantastic deal and will happily recommend them in the future, and there will be other users who had a terrible time and will do their best to ensure other people don’t fall into the same ‘trap’.

A lot of big companies do oversell their services and ‘unlimited’ is a phrase that should turn you away from a company, not make you want to purchase. ‘Unlimited’ as a concept sounds fantastic, but it does not actually exist. You cannot buy unlimited hard drives… ! An overselling webhost will sell more space/bandwidth than they possess because they have calculated the useage of the average user of their service. Be wary as some of these hosts have strict policies that allow them to terminate/suspend your account should you even try to use the actual services/resources that you thought you had signed up to use.

There are many independent web hosting review websites, where you can check genuine reviews from other web users and ensure that the choice you make is the right one for you. Forums wise – I’d particularly recommend the forums at WebHostingTalk – http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ . There are many experienced users there and people will assist with any problems.

Like any service you purchase, it really will pay to do your research first – rather than trying to go with the company with the prettiest lights or the most exciting marketing fluff.

I highly recommend some of the smaller companies around such as Vidahost – http://www.vidahost.com/ . Find a company that has a support team you can talk to on the telephone, a company that isn’t going to oversell/lie to you just to gain a sale and above all else a company that will not disappear with your money tomorrow.

Hope that helps :)

The above words are my own opinion and are based on my own personal knowledge and experiences from running and then selling two very profitable UK hosting companies between 2002-2009.

Hmm – appears I have been lucky. Then again I haven’t had to deal with them on any support levels. I also haven’t tried to cancel anything….yet ;)

Thanks for the heads-up though.