Long before you start your search for a reliable web hosting company, list down your particular web hosting needs. Keep in mind things like the amount of space required, the number of emails, how much would you allocate for transfers, whether you will require a database or even a shopping cart. Consider whether you might want chat features, set up a forum or need a merchant account. Doing this is essential because for a web host to be reliable, it has to cater to your specific needs. The few things that every web host should have are as follows:
Reliability and Up Time
Find out how much Uptime your web host guarantees for your site, for greater Uptime means greater accessibility. Certain web hosts guarantee Uptimes of nearly 99.5%! Enquire about the hardware, safeguards and the connection stability, all of which minimizes downtime.
Pricing-Cost
You should be charged a reasonable rate and be offered flexible manners of making payment by your web host. Carefully look through for setup fees, hidden costs etc. To cover their costs for having quality technical support, most companies nowadays charge setup fees.
Bandwidth
An essential factor that can either advance or curb the growth of your business is bandwidth. You may have to pay extra to a few web hosts offering you small bandwidth if you cross the data transfer or download limit. However, in approximately the same price range others offer greater bandwidth. Select carefully and cautiously. There is no such thing as the tempting 'Unlimited Bandwidth'. Don't fall into it. When your site becomes a hit, then having a minimum of 1 GB of data transfer set for your website allows for greater traffic.
Disk Storage Space-Limit of Data Space
Another crucial factor for growth is space. Web hosts will offer in more or less the similar price, ranges of 20 to 50 MB space or even 100 MB space. As you will end up paying $5 to $10 for every 10MB additional space, choose the ones offering 100 MB and greater space.
Server Speed
Look into the server velocity before you choose a web host. Get a free mechanism like Net Mechanic to figure out the connection velocity for various things like connection timing, system speed, download timing, DNS research and lack of timeouts. The time required for download will give you an idea about the efficiency of the server. Make a quick search of the potential web hosts that you select, during the rush hours and no-rush times.
Fundamental Characteristics
Select a host that will give a range of characteristics right from the start. Certain hosts can give more characteristics at higher prices that they come up with each month.
Multiple Domain Names-Many Domain Names
If in case you use more than one domain name, find out if your web hosting account will allow multiple hosting and if they will charge more for this service. Some web hosts do not charge anything extra for multiple domain names.
Email Autoresponders and Accounts for Mail Forwarding
Ensure that you are able to forward emails from your web hosting account. If you have several websites, it becomes very easy and efficient if all your email is forwarded to your ISP service. You can then read all the mail at once, without having to log into each of your accounts. Another device that saves time and acts as a great marketing tool is Autoresponder, a program that sends any pre-written message that you want to anyone who mails you. This reduces your own workload a lot but still helps you stay connected with people and increase your publicity.
Mailing List
Verify with your web hosting company if you are allowed to prepare lists for mailing. When distributing your ezine and other promotional events or marketing gigs, this mailing list or an online, e-mail based discussion group can be useful.
FTP
Almost very web hosting company comes with the basic service of File Transfer Protocol or FTP. You can quickly and efficiently transfer files from your website to others and vice versa through FTP.
Setting up Anonymous FTP accounts
This service gives you a FTP website that lets users have accessibility to download the required data and files. These nameless mail accounts can get you good money if people make huge downloads of free e-books or software and so on. The best advantage is that if the Net service or phone corporation drops work while file transfers or downloads, you can still keep downloading from wherever you stopped as soon as you reconnect.
Using a Secured or SSL Server
You have to use a very secure server if your trade deals with financial exchanges through the site. You may require meeting extra web hosting expenses for the service but the lack of a secure server can prevent clients from coming. You need a safe server like SSL server, which lets data in a structure to be figured out before transferring it to the server from the browser. This is especially important in cases where orders are taken and personal data like card numbers are exchanged.
CGI Scripts
CGI scripts are usually used to obtain information from any form and then this information is conveniently sent to your email account. Decent web hosting companies are bound to have a library of CGI scripts which can be used by people hosting their sites. But the best web hosting accounts will allow you to add your own desired CGI scripts and use them. Go for web hosts which allow you this provision, for even though you might think you don't need to use CGI scripts that much, you might need them later.
Advanced Features-Developed Characteristics
If your website needs advanced features and applications like Java Applets, RealAudio/Video, Password Protection, Database Access and PHP check with the web hosting company whether they are equipped with such advanced features.
Backup
Almost every web hosting service will make sure to backup your web directory every day. Not providing this basic service is almost unthinkable these days. In fact certain web hosts provide you with unnecessary and unimportant backups just to make sure that your website is not lost in the melee.
Guarantee
There are a host of web service providers out there, and it often becomes difficult to distinguish between them or even trusting them. Accounts which offer a guarantee or schemes like a money back policy within a month, if you are dissatisfied with the services always helps in deciding things. Web hosting accounts offering the money back policy also turn out to be efficient and reliable in their services.
Being Flexible
A stagnant web hosting service can be the worst bane for your website and your business. It too needs to grow along with your website and business. So if you desire to include newer features like ecommerce, it should be able to upgrade and provide you with facilities like shopping cart, storefront or a merchant account. The web host should have constant upgrades an should be ready to provide you services like more web space, or your own dedicated server or even a forum.
Reliability and Up Time
Find out how much Uptime your web host guarantees for your site, for greater Uptime means greater accessibility. Certain web hosts guarantee Uptimes of nearly 99.5%! Enquire about the hardware, safeguards and the connection stability, all of which minimizes downtime.
Pricing-Cost
You should be charged a reasonable rate and be offered flexible manners of making payment by your web host. Carefully look through for setup fees, hidden costs etc. To cover their costs for having quality technical support, most companies nowadays charge setup fees.
Bandwidth
An essential factor that can either advance or curb the growth of your business is bandwidth. You may have to pay extra to a few web hosts offering you small bandwidth if you cross the data transfer or download limit. However, in approximately the same price range others offer greater bandwidth. Select carefully and cautiously. There is no such thing as the tempting 'Unlimited Bandwidth'. Don't fall into it. When your site becomes a hit, then having a minimum of 1 GB of data transfer set for your website allows for greater traffic.
Disk Storage Space-Limit of Data Space
Another crucial factor for growth is space. Web hosts will offer in more or less the similar price, ranges of 20 to 50 MB space or even 100 MB space. As you will end up paying $5 to $10 for every 10MB additional space, choose the ones offering 100 MB and greater space.
Server Speed
Look into the server velocity before you choose a web host. Get a free mechanism like Net Mechanic to figure out the connection velocity for various things like connection timing, system speed, download timing, DNS research and lack of timeouts. The time required for download will give you an idea about the efficiency of the server. Make a quick search of the potential web hosts that you select, during the rush hours and no-rush times.
Fundamental Characteristics
Select a host that will give a range of characteristics right from the start. Certain hosts can give more characteristics at higher prices that they come up with each month.
Multiple Domain Names-Many Domain Names
If in case you use more than one domain name, find out if your web hosting account will allow multiple hosting and if they will charge more for this service. Some web hosts do not charge anything extra for multiple domain names.
Email Autoresponders and Accounts for Mail Forwarding
Ensure that you are able to forward emails from your web hosting account. If you have several websites, it becomes very easy and efficient if all your email is forwarded to your ISP service. You can then read all the mail at once, without having to log into each of your accounts. Another device that saves time and acts as a great marketing tool is Autoresponder, a program that sends any pre-written message that you want to anyone who mails you. This reduces your own workload a lot but still helps you stay connected with people and increase your publicity.
Mailing List
Verify with your web hosting company if you are allowed to prepare lists for mailing. When distributing your ezine and other promotional events or marketing gigs, this mailing list or an online, e-mail based discussion group can be useful.
FTP
Almost very web hosting company comes with the basic service of File Transfer Protocol or FTP. You can quickly and efficiently transfer files from your website to others and vice versa through FTP.
Setting up Anonymous FTP accounts
This service gives you a FTP website that lets users have accessibility to download the required data and files. These nameless mail accounts can get you good money if people make huge downloads of free e-books or software and so on. The best advantage is that if the Net service or phone corporation drops work while file transfers or downloads, you can still keep downloading from wherever you stopped as soon as you reconnect.
Using a Secured or SSL Server
You have to use a very secure server if your trade deals with financial exchanges through the site. You may require meeting extra web hosting expenses for the service but the lack of a secure server can prevent clients from coming. You need a safe server like SSL server, which lets data in a structure to be figured out before transferring it to the server from the browser. This is especially important in cases where orders are taken and personal data like card numbers are exchanged.
CGI Scripts
CGI scripts are usually used to obtain information from any form and then this information is conveniently sent to your email account. Decent web hosting companies are bound to have a library of CGI scripts which can be used by people hosting their sites. But the best web hosting accounts will allow you to add your own desired CGI scripts and use them. Go for web hosts which allow you this provision, for even though you might think you don't need to use CGI scripts that much, you might need them later.
Advanced Features-Developed Characteristics
If your website needs advanced features and applications like Java Applets, RealAudio/Video, Password Protection, Database Access and PHP check with the web hosting company whether they are equipped with such advanced features.
Backup
Almost every web hosting service will make sure to backup your web directory every day. Not providing this basic service is almost unthinkable these days. In fact certain web hosts provide you with unnecessary and unimportant backups just to make sure that your website is not lost in the melee.
Guarantee
There are a host of web service providers out there, and it often becomes difficult to distinguish between them or even trusting them. Accounts which offer a guarantee or schemes like a money back policy within a month, if you are dissatisfied with the services always helps in deciding things. Web hosting accounts offering the money back policy also turn out to be efficient and reliable in their services.
Being Flexible
A stagnant web hosting service can be the worst bane for your website and your business. It too needs to grow along with your website and business. So if you desire to include newer features like ecommerce, it should be able to upgrade and provide you with facilities like shopping cart, storefront or a merchant account. The web host should have constant upgrades an should be ready to provide you services like more web space, or your own dedicated server or even a forum.
About the Author:
About the author: William MacMahon is a professional blogger and server admin in the web hosting industry. Visit WebHostingMadness.com to join him on his search for the top hosting companies each month.
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