Pixelrage.net

I think there’s some kind of law of physics that would better explain this, but there’s technically no such thing as “unlimited.” That goes especially for anything in the marketplace. If there’s one thing I never understood, it’s the phrases “unlimited bandwidth” and “unlimited disk space.” Talk about an oxymoron.

Back in 2001, I was co-managing a web hosting business with my friend, over at Myrmid Web Hosting. Back then, you could charge a full $19.95 for the absolute worst value in a web hosting account imaginable, and you’d get dozens of customers with little effort. Things sure changed since then. One of the biggest changes was the inception of “unlimited.” Unlimited web hosting, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, you name it. It’s all phony baloney, or in plain English: bullshit.

One of the all-time favorites in hosting today is Hostgator; they’re like the Microsoft of web hosting. Everyone knows of them. They’ve done an impressive job of being almost ‘viral’ in the realm of web hosting. They keep making all the right moves…but one of my favorites was the concept of “unlimited bandwidth.” It’s fascinating. If it’s unlimited, I guess I can create a YouTube part II, right? wrong.

I’ve read testimonials about this relatively 4 out of 5 star-rated business, and was interested in the 1 and 2-star ratings they’ve gotten. All of these were from people who have had their accounts revoked or suspended, and most of which were truly not doing anything blackhat or spammy. What did they do wrong? They used too much bandwidth. But, I thought that was unlimited?

Back in February 2009, I wrote Hostgator as a prospective customer, and asked for clarification on the phrase “unlimited.” How far could you push it? This was the response:

“We do not place a cap for disk space or bandwidth on our accounts.  We do limit you to 50,000 inodes and do not allow you to exceed 25% cpu usage for over 90 seconds.  You are also limited to no more than 25 simultaneous mysql processes.  If you can maintain your disk space and bandwidth without exceeding any of the above, we do not place a limit on your HD or bandwidth.  If we find your account to be causing an issue on the shared server, we will simply request that you move to a dedicated server.”

Aha! So, it’s not really unlimited after all. Something else is being metered – it only makes sense! It’s kind of like those “try my product for 30 days, and if you’re not completely satisifed, return it at no cost,” which then make you jump through ten million hoops, surveys and telemarketing calls afterward.

I did some research, not knowing what the hell an “iNode” is. An iNode is a UNIX term that defines a data structure file that stores basic information about other files. So, every time an iNode is fired up when a file (JPG, HTML, PHP, FLV, GIF, PDF, etc.) is used, it’s being ticked somewhere on a Hostgator counter. Use too many of these, and you’re in trouble.

In regard to using 25% CPU usage for over 90 seconds, it’s something I’ve been guilty of on my dedicated server. However, I was the boss of that server, and it didn’t matter. If my video site ever pulled the same stunt on Hostgator, I’d wake up the next day to a dead site and a warning email in my inbox, like the other complaining customers have spoken about.

Finally, the comment about “if we find your account to be causing an issue, we’ll recommend a dedicated server” is a bad flashback from my early days of web hosting, when I used free web hosts and went way over the limit. My site was eventually shut down, and I had to pay for hosting, which was extremely difficult as a poor college student.

The point of this article isn’t to bash Hostgator, since they’re one of many other webhosts that run the “unlimited” marketing campaign (and that’s exactly what it is – clever marketing). The point is that you should know there’s no such thing as “unlimited.” Just like how everything comes from somewhere, everything in the web hosting world has a limit, regardless of what the sales hook states. Always read the fine print. Know what’s really being metered, and then gauge if a dedicated host or VPS is better for your means.