All hosting packages, regardless of their type or cost, should have at least some basic maintenance. Cheap web hosting generally doesn’t need much more than an occasional glance at server loads and bandwidth/storage limits, but many hosting packages require you to watch very closely. After all, you don’t want to come home and discover that your server has been down all day! A disaster like that hurts not only your site, but also discourages your vistors and seriously damages your reputation.
If you’re on cheap web hosting (or shared hosting) then most of the maintenance is not in your hands, but in the hands of your host. Don’t worry – they know what they’re doing, and as long as they are a respectable company they will do their best to keep their servers running at full potential. So, if you have cheap web hosting, all you can really do is sit back and watch. I do however encourage you to pay attention to your bandwidth usage, especially if your site gets a decent amount of traffic (more than 500 UV’s/day or so, or many many pageviews). Obviously you have to watch your storage limits too, but that’s not as important as it won’t cause the server to crash or your host to shut you down.
If you have a VPS, your job depends on what your host does for you. A “managed” VPS is basically like an upgraded shared server, in that it’s all managed on the host’s end. If yours is unmanaged, then you are expected to perform regular maintenance on it. Depending on the specific server, “maintenance” may entail a number of things. I suggest you do some research into the specific server you are running and find out the best ways to keep it running smoothly. If that’s not an option, contact your host and ask what you can do.
Written by Web Hosting Expert on Sep 27, 2009.
