Christian Web Hosting Guide
By: David Butler

As a Christian minister, it seemed only natural for me to try Christian Web Hosting. How exactly are we defining this? In a nutshell it simply refers a Christian owned web hosting provider. Sounds good right? Well actually my experience as a webmaster reveals that for the most part, using a one negatively effected the quality of my website as well my pocketbook. Ouch!

In our humble view you are better off going with a large affordable company with a long track record rather than a Christian Web Hosting service. Why? Let's get into a few of the top reasons why this may not be such a good idea for your ministry.

* Most are Simply Not Christian

* These Services Have Higher Prices Than the Most Popular Web Hosting Companies

* The Vast Majority of Have Hidden Costs or Offer Sub-Par Features compared to the Major Web Hosting Providers

* Generally Christian Web Hosting Has Poor Tech Support

* The Top Cheap Web Hosting Providers Have Greater and Better Selections of Christian Web Designs and Christians Templates

However, most of the problems with this kind of hosting stems from the fact that:

1. They are simply too small to adequately service their clients

2. They by and large use reseller hosting. In other words they purchase servers from other large secular web hosts and slap their own name on them.

However, in order to turn a profit these Christian Web Hosting services have to charge more than the original web hosting company would. Some offer free web hosting but free web hosting comes with a terrible price, and in our view is not worth it.

Additionally, important features like bandwidth and storage space are severely limited because they simply don't have large servers as those web hosting companies servicing 100,000s of webmasters. If you do want extra features, there will be additional costs that the Christian Web Host will pass along to you.

Finally, remember it's likely that the Christian Web Hosting firm is a reseller which means if something goes wrong with your Christian site, they are serving only as a "middleman" between you and the parent web hosting company. This often translates into a longer waiting period to get your site up and running smoothly again.

Overall, the question begs itself. Why deal with a second rate company if you can can get better and cheaper web hosting else where, with better features, a better uptime ratio and a larger variety of templates?

I know some Christians may still wish to use a Christian Web Hosting company. If you do use one we suggest the following:

1. Speak to the head of the company regarding their Christian faith and how their business vision fits in with God's plan for their lives

2. Research whether or not they actually owns their own servers. When you do this, make sure you also find the physical location of the Christian Web Hosting servers.

3. Carefully read the Terms of Service (TOS) of the Christian Web Hosting company to make sure you will not have to incur any additional hidden fees for simple features that should come free.