Just wondering what people look at that tells them if a hosting plan is too good to be true or not.

I think the price / bandwidth ratio is a sure sign. If price/bandwidth is lower than any /GB price available out there with leasing servers or colocating in that "area" then it is too good to be true. Mostly a rule of 5 can be used, meaning this has to be true:

bandwidth / 5 < price

ie.
20GB for $2.99/month
20 / 5 = 4 > $2.99
Therefore it is probably too good to be true, or there is some catch.

Ofcoarse there are many other conditions, but that is a major one that you can tell right off the bat.

If they sell for a price that is too low, then most likely they will loss money when you use your alloted bandwidth limit.

anytime they say bandwidth or space is unlimitted, I mean if that is really the case why doesnt a company like Microsoft host with them and save the millions they spend in bandwidth a month....

Just go thru the offers on WHT, and you'll see what too good to be true really is ;)

Exactly as you said. Generally "we" (meaning us on the forums here) know what reliable bandwidth costs, and can spot when something can't possibly be true. Anything unlimited will never work, and the rediculous limits are a sure sign.

Anything that says unlimited is actually limited in some sense. I sell unlimited sub domains, but if the user starts creating large amounts of subdomains with no real purpose to them, then that is considered abuse.

As for this thread, I was hoping to get people to list things to look out for, for the people that are new to finding a hosting company. I run a hosting company myself, and am getting tired of hearing about people getting cheated by other companies that compete unfairly or unethically.

As far as the "Unlimited" issue goes. You should always be weary of a host offering unlimited space, or unlimited bandwidth. Those are things they have to pay for and therefore there is a limit, depending on how much you/they pay. Other features though, such as e-mail addresses, subdomains and the like, are a little different. Before I go on, I will say, I know there's a limit to everything, but for a lot of these added features, the limit is so high, that it doesn't really matter to the user. And besides, you'll most likely run into webspace or bandwidth issues before you run into "too many subdomains" issues.

Basically, when a host offers "unlimited" options, look and see what the cost of those options are to the host, and if it seems like they're doing overselling. If not, you'll probably be in the clear.

If you have any question in your mind that the deal presented in front of you is too good to be true, most likely it is. Every customer's formula of what a good deal is different. It is purely subjective.

Then I suppose you should specify which type of clients you are going for? Web-educated shared, reseller, the average small business looking for hosting, etc.

I think it's tough for you to say what the average user should watch out for in a hosting company. Many times, you don't find out the service is not up to par until you host with them. The average user doesn't know how much bandwidth they are going to use. They just want a site up. So bigger must be better, right? The more space for the cheaper price is what they will look for, for lack of a better idea on what to look at.

Your thoughts?

Very valid point Wayne. That is probably where the bulk of these cheap hosts get their business. Amature, or newbie users who are looking for a place to start. When you compare just the numbers, those hosts are the best choice.

You can never be sure of what is too good to be true. Unlimited space/bandwidth are dead giveaways. Bandwidth is at a premium so people setting 100gb for $1/month is a good clue also. The disk space is less of a give away as we find most of our servers with the age of 80-120gb drives have less than 25% of any drive used. We are about to update our space plans again since our busiest servers still have more than 70% drive space free.