What is the Perfect Time to Shift to a Dedicated Server

Many online businesses start off on small shared hosting plans that allow people to familiarize themselves with the internet and business itself. However, this kind of setup is not ideal for running a true online business, due to the demands that come with higher traffic rates and performance values. This is the point where most people will look to larger hosting plans like VPS, Dedicated hosting.

The inherent problem with this is that there is no set limit on when a person should upgrade to a dedicated hosting solution. Because many lower traffic sites can run for years with no problems, this can allow people to believe that they are perfectly fine, when their current plan may actually be holding them back. With all of this to consider, it brings up the main question in most online business owners’ minds: when is the best time to upgrade my hosting plan? There are three essential questions to answer in order to come to a conclusion.

First, how many daily visitors is your site getting?

This is the first fundamental question that needs answering. If your site is receiving hundreds of visitors per day, then you could definitely benefit from upgrading hosting plan. After all, out of those hundreds, how many people is your site actually turning away because it does not have the bandwidth to be able to support all those visitors at once?

If your site gets overrun on its current plan, it could slow down to a stop, especially if you are using any multimedia programs that need the bandwidth to stream content. Upgrading could mean the difference between hundreds of visitors a day, and thousands.

Second, how many sites do you have running?

The number of websites you have running can greatly affect your sites’ individual performances. Think of it like this: you have six sites that are currently receiving a few hundred visitors a piece each day. But, if you had a better hosting plan, these same sites could host thousands of visitors a day without any performance degradation. With an upgraded hosting plan, you could have as many as 50 sites running at once, all of which could receive that many visitors.

Finally, how are the sites themselves performing?

This is the big test for your current hosting plan. If someone can surf through your websites without experiencing any slow loading pages or other problems, then you are probably fine on your current plan. But, if your site is constantly crashing or the pages take longer than about 10 seconds to load, then your hosting plan is in dire need of an upgrade.

After all, if your site crashes on people, then are very likely to not return again. This limits your potential to obtain new customers by a wide margin and could stop the growth of your business.