This quick guide will help you to decide which web host on eBay to purchase from, which package to choose, and what to look out for!

The first thing you will need to do, is decide which of the two platforms you want to host on, either Windows or Linux ... 95% of people will go with Linux, as this allows you to use the ever popular and famous cPanel and WHM, and also gives you the ability to start using dynamic applications such as SQL databases with ease of use ... You should only really go with Windows hosting if you specifically need it, such as running ASP applications, connecting to MS Access databases, or running .NET systems ...

Once you've decided that, you then need to go out and see what packages sellers are offering. The first thing you will see is that every seller will offer 'Unlimited' packages, which means unlimited disk space and bandwidth usage. Please bare in mind, nothing is ever unlimited, if the disk fills up, ask yourself, will the host put in a larger disk because they offered unlimited disk space, NO, they won't! I like to advise most people to try and find a package that usually works with the 1/5 ratio ... 1 being the diskspace, and 5 being the bandwidth allocated. For a basic single site, you're looking at a few hundred megabytes of space, and possibly 1 gig of bandwidth, but you really need to estimate how popular your website is going to be! (Remember, most hosts will happily upgrade you if you under estimate the traffic your site generates, for a fee of course) ... if you plan on having lots of photos, music, videos, or maybe a large forum to run on your website, then get yourself plenty of bandwidth, and you'll see it get sapped away rapidly!

Once you've decided your package requirements, it's time to find that perfect seller and host! I will start off by telling you that customer / technical support is vital for hosting. Good, quick responding, and reliable support is a must! So, have a peep through their feedback, have a look what people are saying about them and buyer's experiences! One of the best ways to see what they offer, is have a look through their auctions, and see if they have a hosting website set up outside of eBay, find their support section, and see what they offer. If they have not much and just say "Please email support@webaddress.com for technical support" then you'd probably best staying away from them. Have a look out for hosts that have a support ticket system, so you can keep track of your requests. Keep an eye out for a good FAQ section, knowledge base, and other useful tip sections, and ideally a forum! Now, unfortunately, and i've seen it a fair few times, people will buy themselves a dedicated server, or large reseller account, start offering webhosting on eBay etc, get 100's of people signed up, and then a few months down the line, pull the plug on the server, or stop paying for it, and close their email/website down, and they're off with your money, and your website and email remains offline, along with any files you had on there. So, a quick tip is to see how big the seller is, see how long they've been trading for, do they look and sound professional, or do they seem like a one man and his dog outfit? Use your common sense, read their description and get a full overview!

When it comes to costs and payment, be very carful! Some item descriptions will display a cost which sounds very good, yet when you get in to the small text, that turns out to be a monthly cost which you didn't expect, and you find yourself paying 12 times the amount! If you can, avoid paying for a year upfront unless it's cheap. This will cover yourself from the 'take your money and run' sellers, and it also gives you the ability to pull out and move hosts if you find yours to be poor. Please keep away from the "one off fee for life" deals, they simply do not exist. Do you honestly believe that someone is going to keep a server running for the next 50 years for your one off 50 bucks! Not a cat in hell's chance!

If you're wondering how purchasing web hosting on eBay works, or differs from buying direct, here's a few GENERAL steps of how it works:

1) Buyer purchases the eBay auction/item and pays via PayPal or other method
2) The seller will setup the account, email you the login credentials, and provide you with name servers
3) The buyer then either registers a domain or uses their current domain, and points it to the host's name servers
4) Usually within 24-48 hrs, this will have resolve worldwide, and everyone will then be able to access your website
5) Buyer usually gets their site up and running and then will leave feedback, to which the seller will respond!

Obviously, this will differ in almost all cases, but that's a general idea ... I hope this guide has been useful, and if you'd like to see more, please let me know! Thanks - Derby!