What to do when you’ve outgrown your shared web host

Most shared web hosting companies offer “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth. As great as this sounds, it simply isn’t possible for the companies to offer you unlimited anything. There will always be caveats in the terms of service that restrict your account usage. These unlimited features are nothing more than a marketing strategy, making it sound like you can host anything you’d like at any time.

So what happens if one day you go to visit your website only to find it suspended for using too many server resources? I’m sure the first thing that will pop into your head is “I thought I got unlimited hosting? Why am I suspended?” The hosting company will then point you to their terms of service that will state something along the lines of “unlimited hosting is intended for website files only. Videos, music, and image files, email, backup, etc. can not be stored and used as disk space.”

What you will have to do in this case is upgrade your account to a virtual private server. This will give you more (and a finite amount) disk space, a set amount of bandwidth, and allow you to essentially control your own server. While this may be overwhelming at first, it will pay off for you in the long run. Your website will be more stable, more reliable, and you won’t be shut down randomly for whatever the host feels like.