|
Some hosts will advertise hosting plans which seem to offer an amazing assortment
of features for very little money. These hosts are often guilty of overselling, which happens
when a host crams too many customers into a particular server. Since a certain amount of computer
power is required to serve a web page or to run a dynamic CGI script, an overloaded server will
"starve" each customer, and their sites will display slowly or, if very badly oversold, not at all.
Metaphorically speaking, customers over hosts who oversell are like people renting apartments too
small to hold a bed. It's possible to live like that, but it's extremely inconvenient. It can be
tricky to find out if a potential vendor is overselling. You can ask vendors how many sites they
place on a typical server, or you can check to see if they have any "Sites Of The Month" listed,
where they indicate popular sites hosted by them. If you cruise by some of these sites and find
that they load too slowly, you might want to try another host.
One thing to keep in mind is that overselling in moderation is a good thing. It's
like a cell phone company offering 1000 minutes of talking time a month, but knowing that their
average customer only talks for 500. A large enough vendor can place more customers on a given
server, with no adverse effects, if they oversell intelligently. A small vendor who oversells
beyond their capacity will irritate their customers.
|