Published on · By the IT LABS PRO team
Very cheap web hosting offers all look alike: “unlimited” space, “unlimited” e-mail, “unlimited” websites. On paper, it is hard to see what a more expensive plan adds. In practice, hosting decides how fast your website is, whether it stays online, how secure it is and whether your e-mails reach their recipients. Here are the most common traps, how to spot them before you pay, and what good hosting should include.
This article is about quality and traps. To compare hosting types and budgets, read our guide to web hosting in Morocco: prices and how to choose.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting puts dozens, sometimes hundreds, of accounts on the same server. They share the processor, the memory, the disks, the network connection and, very often, the same IP address for the web and for sending e-mail. That sharing is what makes shared hosting affordable, and it is a good solution for most business websites… as long as the host limits each account, monitors its servers and does not overfill them.
A very low price is almost always reached the same way: more accounts per server, less monitoring, less support. You pay for those savings later, in other ways.
The shared IP address and your e-mail reputation
When a server sends e-mail, the receiving servers (Gmail, Outlook, company mail systems) check the reputation of the sending IP address. Among other things, they query public blocklists, such as Spamhaus’s, which list addresses that have sent spam or show signs of compromise. Spamhaus does not block anything itself: receiving servers use these lists to accept, defer or reject a message.
On a shared server, the IP address is common to every account. If a single website on the server is hacked and sends spam, the IP can end up on a blocklist, and your quotes, invoices and replies to customers land in junk folders, or are not delivered at all. It is not your fault, but it is your business that suffers.
Three DNS records protect your domain and reassure mailbox providers:
- SPF lists the servers allowed to send e-mail for your domain;
- DKIM signs each message, proving it has not been altered and really comes from your domain;
- DMARC tells mailbox providers what to do with a message that fails these checks, and sends you reports.
Google now asks everyone who sends to Gmail to set up at least SPF or DKIM, and bulk senders (more than 5,000 messages a day) to set up all three. These records do not replace a clean IP, but without them even a good IP is not enough. Check your domain in seconds with our SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker, and read SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained.
What about Google Search? Sharing an IP address with other websites, even poor ones, does not lower your rankings by itself: Google representatives have said so several times, since shared hosting is the norm on the web. Hosting affects SEO in other ways: speed, uptime, security and backups, covered below.
“Unlimited”: the limits in the small print
No server is unlimited. “Unlimited” plans are unlimited in disk space or number of websites, but every account is still capped by technical limits, often described in the terms of service rather than on the plan’s page:
- Processor (CPU) and memory (RAM): the share of the server your website can use at any moment. Beyond it, the site slows down.
- Entry processes: how many requests your website can handle at the same time. When the limit is reached, the next visitors get a 508 “Resource Limit Is Reached” error, typically during a traffic peak, which is exactly when you need the site most.
- Inodes: the maximum number of files in the account. E-mails, cache files and backups count too: a full mailbox can be enough to block website updates.
- Hourly e-mail sending limit: a cap set by the host. A busy contact form or a newsletter can reach it, and the next messages are delayed or lost.
- “Fair use”: a clause that lets the host suspend an account it considers too demanding, sometimes without notice.
Before you choose, ask for these values in writing. A serious host shares them without hesitation.
Speed, uptime and server location
This is where hosting directly affects your SEO. Google takes page experience into account, including the Core Web Vitals, which measure, among other things, how fast a page displays: an overloaded server that responds slowly drags these metrics down, however carefully the website is built.
Uptime matters just as much. When a server returns 5xx errors (500, 502, 503), Googlebot slows down crawling; if the errors persist, the affected pages can drop out of the index. For your visitors it is even simpler: a customer who cannot load your website goes to a competitor.
Server location plays a part too: the further the server is from your visitors, the longer every exchange takes. For an audience in Morocco and Europe, a nearby server, or a content delivery network (CDN), makes a measurable difference. Test your website with our website speed test.
Security, malware clean-up and backups
On a poorly isolated or poorly maintained server, one hacked website can infect others. A good host isolates each account, keeps its software up to date (operating system, PHP, database), monitors intrusions and scans files for malicious code. An infected website can be flagged as dangerous in browsers and lose its visitors’ trust overnight.
Also read what happens when something goes wrong: on many entry-level plans, cleaning an infected website is billed separately, or left to the customer. The same goes for backups: check how often they run (daily, ideally), how long they are kept, where they are stored (not only on the same server) and who restores them. A backup nobody knows how to restore protects nothing.
Finally, the SSL certificate, which enables HTTPS, should be included and renewed automatically. Check yours with our SSL certificate checker.
Support, renewal prices and who owns the domain
Three points often make the difference after a year:
- Support. Who answers, how fast, in which language and through which channel? A ticket handled in three days during an outage costs more than the price difference between two plans.
- Renewal price. Many plans show a heavily discounted first-year price, sometimes tied to a multi-year commitment, then renew at the regular, much higher rate. Always compare the second-year price.
- Domain ownership. The domain should be registered in your name, and you should have access to its management. A domain registered in the provider’s name makes you dependent on them the day you want to change host.
How to compare two hosting plans
Before you sign, ask these questions and keep the answers in writing:
- What are the limits for CPU, RAM, entry processes, inodes and e-mail sending?
- Where is the server, and what uptime is promised?
- Are backups daily, how long are they kept, and is restoring included?
- Is malware clean-up included?
- Is SSL included and renewed automatically?
- What will the renewal price be?
- Are the domain name and the hosting in my name?
What our hosting includes, and why it costs 2,500 to 3,200 MAD excl. VAT a year
At IT LABS PRO, hosting for a business website, the domain name, security and maintenance come to 2,500 to 3,200 MAD excl. VAT a year, depending on the plan. That covers what very cheap plans leave out:
- security: monitoring, SSL certificate and website protection;
- regular backups, and restoring them when needed;
- updates and maintenance;
- support from a team that knows your website, because we put it online.
Hosting and the domain name are bought through our client shop. The domain name and the hosting are registered in your name: you keep full control. For a plan suited to your website, or to move an existing one, contact us: we reply within one business day.
Frequently asked questions
Does cheap hosting hurt my Google rankings?
Not by itself: sharing a server or an IP address with other websites is not a ranking factor. A slow, often unavailable, poorly secured server without backups does harm your website, and therefore its rankings.
Why do my e-mails land in spam?
The most common causes are a sending IP address on a blocklist, often because of another account on the same server, and missing SPF, DKIM and DMARC records. Start by checking those three records.
What should I check before renewing my hosting?
The renewal price, the account’s real limits, backups and restores, support, and above all that the domain name is registered in your name.
Sources
- Google, “Email sender guidelines”: support.google.com
- The Spamhaus Project, DNS blocklist overview: spamhaus.org
- CloudLinux, per-account limits documentation (entry processes, 508 error): docs.cloudlinux.com
- Google Search Central, “Understanding page experience in Google Search results”: developers.google.com
- Google Search Central, “How HTTP status codes, and network and DNS errors affect Google Search”: developers.google.com
- Search Engine Journal, “Is IP Address a Google Ranking Factor?” (Google’s statements on shared hosting): searchenginejournal.com
In short
Very cheap hosting does not hurt your website because it is shared, but because it is often slow, overloaded, poorly monitored and poorly backed up, and because its IP address can send your e-mails to spam. Compare the real limits, backups, support and renewal price, not just the headline price. For budgets and plan types, see our guide to web hosting prices in Morocco. This article is also available in French: hébergement web pas cher : les pièges cachés.