How many times have you looked for cheap pricing on new domain names? These costs add up, especially if you plan on setting up a large number of sites for affiliate marketing. Many web hosting providers these days offer a free domain when you sign up, and also allow you to create unlimited sub-domains for free. This is just one way you can save money by switching to a better web hosting company. Read on for more ways to maximize your web hosting.

Make sure you, and not your web host, controls your domain name. If you let your host control your domain name, you may be stuck with that host if you don’t want to change domains. Some unscrupulous hosts won’t release the domain info if you leave on bad terms. If you control the domain, you can point it at another host’s nameservers and start fresh.

Before choosing your web host, you should always try calling their technical support and ask a few questions. If you can talk to a representative right away, this means their customer service is efficient. If you cannot talk to anyone at anytime of the day or night, you should look for another service.

The web hosting service that you decide to utilize should have easily accessible customer support with fast response times. This is important because once you begin running your website, you might realize that you require more than is offered in your package. For example, if your website has a huge boost in traffic that is beyond your bandwidth limits, you should be able to contact your web host and immediately obtain more bandwidth. If it takes over a week for the web host to respond to your request, and if your website goes offline in the meantime, this could have lasting negative consequences.

Decide which host to use based on how well it meets your hosting needs rather than on other services it provides. You might not get the best deal on domain names or other extra services from your web host provider. Don’t purchase these extra services when you sign up for web hosting unless you’re confident that you’re getting the best deal.

If you are considering a free web hosting service, be careful. If you do choose a free web host, make sure all important files are backed up. Keep in mind that since they are free, these types of services normally do not offer extra features like backups. You’ll need to keep a full backup yourself to get your site back up if anything happens to cause it to disappear.

Find out if your web host service supports videos. Videos take a lot of storing space and bandwidth, and you might have to spend a lot for a plan that supports videos. You can save money by uploading your videos to YouTube for free and embedding them on your website.

Aside from selecting web hosting companies based on fewest outages, you should also make sure the web hosting company you choose automates your payments as well. If a company does not offer this, then that company is not worth using. Make sure you know what you are getting into, and choose wisely.

Find out if a potential web host offers a money-back guarantee. Most hosts provide a guarantee that will allow you to have your money refunded within thirty days or less of signing up if you’re not happy. Some web hosts may fail to live up to their advertisements.

There’s no question that, even though websites exist purely online with no actual stores, they still cost money to operate. Any way that you can save a bit helps, and it’s worth your time investment to shop around after reading the above tips, Compare web hosting providers and choose one that has a lot to offer you in exchange for your hard-earned money.