Web hosting is one of the most important aspects of your website. Going with a good web host is always recommended so you get a great price and the required features for implementing search engine optimization, graphics and links.

Going with a bad web host not only affects your search engine rankings, it could cost you money in the long run. The truth of the matter is that your web hostingis going to play a huge role in your online authority. There are certain signs that can tell you whether or not you have a bad web host.

Here are the top five signs that you have a bad web host.

One of the most important aspects of running a website is making sure that the website has a good uptime. The uptime for your site can directly affect sales and conversions. If your website is down frequently, it should reflect in your traffic statistics as well as in your conversions. Nobody wants a website that is down more than 10% of the time.

Every second that your website is down you are losing money. Most web hosting companies offer you a promise that the website will be up for a certain uptime percentage. However, this is fairly difficult to gauge as there is no way of actually checking the uptime before you sign up for an account with the company. Find a web hosting provider will that will guarantee you have an uptime of 99% as well as good reviews from customers.

The customer service for your web hosting should be available 24 hours a day seven days a week. Whether you just have a question about the billing cycle or you are experiencing adware, viruses or other malfunctions on your site, the customer service department should be able to guide you in getting your website back up and running or answer any questions about billing to your account. If you cannot get in touch with the customer service department of your web host there is a problem.

Good web hosting companies will offer you technical and customer support 24 hours a day and on holidays. Having a company that cherishes you as a customer is essential tokeeping your website updated and on the Internet. If you cannot get in touch with your web host company’s customer service department, it’s probably time to go with a new web hosting company.

The amount of time that it takes for your website to load can be a determining factor in whether or not customers convert into sales. There is nothing more annoying than waiting for a website to load when with the simple click of a back button you can have other websites within a couple of seconds. Chances are if it’s taking your site too long to load there’s not enough bandwidth across the host server. Cheaper web hosting companies will sell shared hosting packages to multiple websites and bog down the processors and amount of bandwidth across the server making the websites slow. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, change your web host company.

Security on your website should be top notch. If your web host company is not offering features such as firewall technology, antivirus software and anti-malware applications, you run the risk of losing all of your information or getting hacked. Cheaper web host companies will not offer security applications leaving your site open to being hacked on the Internet.

Go with the web host that is going to offer you the best security in order to keep your information and your data safe. Remember, if you’re running an online store, it is not only your data that is in jeopardy, it is also your customer’s data. Go with the web hostcompany that is going to give you and your customers the proper security features needed to keep data safe across the servers.

The features of your web hosting company should be on par with the price you’re paying per month. Having the ability to implement PHP scripts, Joomla, Media Wiki or b2evolution technology into your website is essential to staying with the trends in the market. Features such as WordPress, Drupal and vBulletin are fairly commonplace with most good web hosting companies. If you are paying for a hosting company and you do not have these features, or access to install the features yourself, you need to find a new company that will suit your needs.

Web hosting is one of the most important aspects of your website. When you go with a cheap host you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. If your web host has any of these attributes, cancel your subscription and go with the host such as HostGator.