One thing that is most difficult to choose (after a dress for your girlfriend that doesn’t make her “look” fat) is choosing a webhost. A google search is going to even confuse you further. As you wade into this enormous ocean, you will be wowed by the offers given by some of these hosts, throwing away 100’s of GBs (no less) of disk space and bandwidth running into terrabytes. Almost every software on earth in your one-click fantastico arsenal. (plus they promise to do your dishes after you are through with the dinner too). All this and more for a measly 3.99, 4.99, 5.99 and such price. Your jaw already touching the floor, you make a quick dash for your wallet, flip out your credit card, and sign up for that “limited time” offer for unlimited webspace before it expires. You then laugh at your friend who got a measly 100mb for the same price. But, what gives? Even a 100 GB hdd costs me close to 40-50 bucks, then how come they are able to do it?

There is no great Indian rope trick around it. The answer lies in just one term “oversell”. Yes, they oversell their available disk space and bandwidth to the tunes of 10s to 1000s of times, knowing that an average user will never use it up. Even if you do, then your account will be mysteriously suspended for “violating the AUP”. The AUP practically bans you from doing anything. It is a blend of the most hideous legal jargon signing on which might be equal to bequething all your savings to the host and you will never even come to know.

So, this post is just meant to be a word of caution for you to stay away from all those big and small names, purportedly touted as the “best” on gazillions of sites across the web, and think again. If its too good to be true, it probably is.

PS: Take a look at http://webhostingtalk.com if you want to gather some more info or comment here, or write to me.