Notes for owners · Websites and conversion
Website hosting for an Indian SME: what to ask before you pay
Before paying for hosting, ask who owns the domain, where backups sit, who gets the midnight alert and what renewal costs. A question sheet with what a good answer sounds like.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
On this page
Before you pay for hosting, get written answers to five questions. Whose name is the domain registered in? Where are backups kept, and has anyone restored one? Who gets the alert when the site goes down at midnight, and what do they do? What does the plan cost on renewal, not only in the first year? Can you move the site away without anyone's permission? A host who answers these plainly is worth more than one who is merely cheap.
Why the first price tells you little
Hosting is sold like a mobile plan: a low opening price, then a different one. The cheapest line on a comparison page may not include backups you can restore from, a certificate that renews itself, or a person to call. Those are the things you miss on the day the site disappears.
The aim of these questions is to learn who is responsible for what. Ask them by email, so the answers are written, and keep the reply with your invoices.
The question sheet
| Question | What a good answer sounds like | A worrying answer |
|---|---|---|
| Whose name is the domain registered in? | "Yours. Here is the login, and the registrar's contact details." | "We hold it for you for convenience." |
| Where is the server, and is the plan shared? | A named place and a plain description of what is shared | "Cloud" with no more detail |
| How often are backups taken, and where are they stored? | A stated routine, kept somewhere separate from the site, with a note on restoring | "We take them if you ask" |
| Has a backup ever been restored as a test? | "Yes, here is how we check." | A pause, or "you do not need to worry" |
| Who is alerted if the site stops working? | A named role or team, a way to reach them, and what they do first | "Our system monitors it" with no person |
| What does renewal cost, and when is it charged? | The renewal price, the date, and a reminder before it | Silence, or "same as now" with no figure |
| Is the security certificate included and renewed for you? | Yes, and it renews itself | "You buy it separately" without a reason |
| If I leave, how do I take my site? | A full copy of the files and database, within a stated and sensible process | "Contact support" |
Print it, tick what you hear, and write the names of the people who gave the answers.
Three answers that matter most
Domain ownership comes first
One quiet way to lose a site: a developer registers the domain in their own name or the agency's, and years later, when the relationship ends, the business cannot prove the name is theirs. If it expires, a stranger can buy it. Check that you are the registrant, that the contact email is one you read, and that renewal is on a calendar you control. Our checklist on who owns your website covers how to look and how to move it.
Backups that exist and backups that work
A backup is real only if someone has restored from it. Ask where copies are kept: a backup on the same server as the site disappears with the site. Ask how far back they go, since a problem may sit unnoticed for days. For a shop taking orders, ask how much data you could lose between the last copy and a failure, and whether that is acceptable.
For a small brochure site, a daily copy kept elsewhere is sensible. For a shop with orders arriving all day, you may need more. Ask what your plan does, and decide whether it fits.
The midnight alert
Sites can fail at awkward hours, for example when a certificate expires or a plugin updates itself. The question is not whether monitoring exists but who acts. A cheap plan may mean a ticket answered the next working day. For a clinic whose evening Google traffic brings appointments, that may be fine. For an online store running a festival sale, it is not.
Decide how much downtime your trade can bear, and ask the host to say what response you can expect. If the answer is vague, assume it is slow. If nobody in your office can take that job, ask whether a website maintenance and support arrangement names a person for it.
A rice exporter in Karnal
An invented example. A basmati rice exporter in Karnal takes enquiries from importers through its website. A friend's nephew built it, registered the domain in the nephew's own name and put it on cheap hosting. Two years on, the plan lapses because the card on file has expired, and the nephew has moved to Pune and stopped replying. An importer who searches the firm's name finds a parking page.
Price was not the fault. Nobody on the exporter's side held a login. Getting the name back takes weeks, and the site is dark for part of that time: calls to the registrar, proof of identity and of the business, then a rebuild from the last copy found on an old laptop.
The same exporter, starting again, would use the sheet before paying a rupee. The domain goes in the firm's name with the firm's email on it. A second person holds a login. The backup sits somewhere other than the server, and someone has seen it restored. And there is a calendar entry sixty days before each renewal date, so a lapsed card shows up as a reminder and not as a parking page.
The loss is not only the weeks. The exporter pays a freelancer ₹8,000 to rebuild the pages and misses two importer enquiries that went to the parking page.
If an agency or a relative hosts it for you
Many small firms host through whoever built the site. That can work, but ask for the same sheet. Ask for the registrar login in your own name, a written note of where the files and the database sit, and the host account's billing email. If the person says it is handled, ask to see the screen. You are not accusing anyone. You are making sure the site survives a change of job, a change of phone number or a falling-out.
When a bigger plan is not the answer
Hosting is not always the cause of a slow or broken site. Heavy images, unused plugins and old software can slow a site as much as a modest server does. Before paying for more, read how to speed up a slow site. Upgrade only if a nearly empty page is still slow.
The cost guide gives the wider picture of what a site costs.
Email the sheet first
Email the sheet to your current host or the one you are considering, and file the replies. Do the domain question today: log in to the registrar and read whose name it is in. If the answers are thin, move before something breaks. A site that is down is a hole in your marketing, because every ad and listing points at it. If a move is needed, see website hosting and security, or tell us what you need.
