|
Important Considerations Before Choosing
A Web Hosting Provider
By: Michael Smith
The first thing before choosing a web hosting provider
is that you should be fully aware of your hosting
requirements. If you are a beginner wanting to host a
personal web site, then your only concern is that you
get a decent amount of disk space for your web site with
a host that is as cheap as $5 per month. However, if you
are a developer, an online entrepreneur or an online
business looking for e-commerce capabilities or advanced
scripting technologies, then you can determine your
requirements in the following order.
(1) Whether you need Shared Hosting or Dedicated
Hosting:
This depends mainly on two major requirements, the
traffic your web site is expected to receive and the
degree of administrative privileges you need. If you
expect your web site to receive huge amounts of traffic,
then you will need to have a Dedicated Server which
definitely has a much greater bandwidth offering. Also
you should select Dedicated server hosting if your web
site requires customized options, secure information or
complex applications i.e. e-commerce, dynamic content,
database and multimedia applications.
(2) Whether you need Linux Hosting or Windows
Hosting:
If you're going to use server technologies such as ASP,
JSP etc or intend to run Microsoft applications like
Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database on your
server, then you should use a Windows hosting provider.
Although ASP can be run on the Linux platform using some
commercial applications, there are security and
reliability concerns related to it. However, if you want
to use ColdFusion, it can run on both Linux and Windows
platforms.
(3) What are your Space and Bandwidth requirements:
Many web hosting providers nowadays offer generous
amounts of disk space from 1 GB to 3 GB. However, if
your web site mainly acts as a download resource, then
your disk space requirements may be 5 to 10 times
greater than this. The second consideration is how much
traffic your web site is expected to receive which will
let you estimate your bandwidth requirements.
(4) How many Parked Domains and Subdomains do you
need:
Parked domains are very advantageous and can
significantly increase the amount of traffic to your web
site. Similarly, subdomains can help with your search
engine rankings by pointing to specific directories of
your web site. Parked domains and subdomains
occasionally come free with certain web hosting
packages. However if you need more, you will have to pay
an additional price per month.
(5) FTP Accounts and Anonymous FTP Requirements:
You may need more than one FTP account if you have
coworkers working on your web site project at different
locations. The Anonymous FTP permits the general public
to access certain directories on your web server to whom
they have been granted permission by you. In most cases,
you will need a dedicated IP address for Anonymous FTP
to function.
(6) Whether you need e-commerce Features:
If you need e-commerce features, you should choose a web
hosting provider that provides e-commerce functionality
such as shopping carts and the ability to accept credit
cards. You should also check whether their server is SSL
secure.
In addition to your own hosting requirements, the
following considerations must be kept in mind when
looking for a quality web hosting provider.
(1) More than 99.5% uptime:
Choose a web hosting provider that has an uptime greater
than 99.5% and if there is an uptime guarantee, it's
even better. If your web site is for business purposes,
it's very crucial that your site stays online 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
(2) Fast Servers:
The level of connectivity of your web hosting provider
to the Internet is very important. So you should choose
a web hosting provider with at least a T3 connection to
the major Internet backbone. Analysis has shown that the
average web visitor waits for about 30 seconds before
your web page loads. So if your web site takes more than
30 seconds to load, chances are that you will loose a
lot of visitors and consequently sales.
(3) Server Backups:
To make your data secure, your web hosting provider must
have a power backup system and should backup the data to
an external device in order to prevent the data loss due
to failure. Check how frequently the web hosting
provider backups the data, i.e. daily or weekly.
(4) Disk Space and Bandwidth:
Choose a web hosting provider that meets your disk space
and bandwidth requirements. Most web hosting providers
offer 1 GB to 3 GB of disk space, so if your web site is
not mainly a download resource, then this factor is not
that important for you. However, as regards the
bandwidth, it should be as much as possible because your
traffic can increase in the future thereby requiring
more data transfer. Also check that you have the option
of buying more disk space and bandwidth when required.
(5) Unrestricted CGI, SSH, FTP access & Anonymous
FTP:
If you have a professional web site, you will need to
run CGI scripts, have SSH (Secure Shell) access and FTP
access. CGI and FTP access is provided by most web
hosting providers whereas SSH access is provided by a
few. You may also need to check if anonymous FTP access
is provided.
(6) Software/Scripts:
Choose a web hosting provider that has an extensive
script library that you can use to add guestbooks,
forms, surveys, newsletters etc to your web site.
(7) E-commerce capabilities and SSL:
Choose a web hosting provider that provides you with
e-commerce capabilities with shopping cart software and
also merchant accounts. The web hosting provider must
also have an SSL secure server for safe and risk-free
transactions.
(8) Web-Based Administration:
Almost all web hosting providers nowadays provide a
control panel to access and manage web site features.
Ask for a demo of their control panel if possible and
check to make sure that it is simple as well as
comprehensive. The control panel should provide access
to FTP, e-mail, databases, e-commerce and all other
functions for effective web site management. VDeck 2.0
and CPanel are the leading brands of administration
control panels.
(9) Full e-mail services:
Choose a web hosting provider that provides both POP3
and IMAP e-mail accounts, web-based e-mail,
autoresponders, mailing lists, forwarding accounts and
antivirus and spam filtering software.
(10) Moneyback Guarantee:
If the Web hosting provider gives a moneyback guarantee,
it's even better because it makes you absolutely
risk-free.
(11) 24/7/365 Customer Support:
The web hosting provider should provide as many support
channels as possible including an FAQ section, a
knowledgebase, video and flash tutorials, toll-free
support, e-mails support, live chat support and a
community forum. Try e-mailing the web host a couple of
times to check how quickly they respond to your request.
The customer support should be as prompt as possible and
should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and
365 days a year. This is crucial because if you run into
problems and the support staff is not receptive or
knowledgeable, you will be helpless.
Web Hosting Info
About the Author: Michael Smith is
an expert web hosting analyst. His web site
http://www.webhostlead.com
reviews and rates the
leading web hosting providers. Source:
www.isnare.com
Web Hosting,
Hosting, Web Hosting Provider, Domain Hosting, Email
Hosting, Cheap Web Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Business
Web Hosting, Ecommerce Hosting, Domain Registration
Hosting, Small Business, Managed Hosting, Cheap
Dedicated Servers, 64-bit Hosting, Web hosting Company
|
