How To Choose A Web Host

What is a web host

It is a service provider that rents out server space so that you can get your website up on the World Wide Web. The server is basically a computer.

Today, there are thousands of web hosting services available on the Internet. Some even offer free web hosting. Often these free web hosting services come with banner advertising. There are very few free web hosting providers that offer bannerless advertising.

Free or paid web hosting

It is obvious that free web hosting will not cost you a penny, or will it? Unless, you are planning to set up a website just for kicks or hobby sake, by all means go for free web hosting. But if you are planning to run a business, it is sound advice to go for paid web hosting. Free web hosting service providers may change their policy anytime. They may cancel free web hosting services. Your website may disappear overnight. Think of the consequences, if you have a thriving business with good traffic.

Anyways, if you want potential customers to take you seriously, you should have your own domain name, and paid Web hosting service.

Now, let’s get to the essential. How to choose a web host?

Here is a list of considerations when it comes to choosing a web host…

1. Features Offered

• Shared or Dedicated Hosting
  
  For shared hosting your website is on the same host server with several other websites. Shared hosting is an economical solution for smaller business. Larger business tend to pay for dedicated servers which provide faster access and visitors accessibility one hundred per cent of the time. Does your potential web host or ISP (Internet Service Provider) provide both options?
  
  
• Control Panel
  
  This is the interface where you access your website on the server. It allows you to manage your database, hosting options, FTP accounts, email accounts, and to upload your files directly.
  
  
• Diskspace
  
  Unless you have a lot of graphics, sound and video clips, 50 MB of disk space should be enough. However, give yourself room for expansion. Check if the host has other plans that offer larger diskspace just in case you need to upgrade.
  
  
• Bandwidth
  
  Bandwidth is amount of data measured in bytes that is transferred from your site to the visitors’ computers when they browse your site. You can estimate how much bandwidth you need by looking at the average web page size including graphics, and multiplying it by the number of page views you expect to have in a month.
  
  For example with an average page size of 50KB, and 1000 views per day, your estimated bandwidth would be 1.5GB. Pay careful attention if you offer ebooks and software for download at your website.
  
  
• Email, POP3, Mail Forwarding, Auto-responders
  
  With POP3 (Post Office Protocol) account you can read emails from Outlook, Netscape or any other email software. You could also do mail forwarding.
  
  Another feature to look for are auto-responders where you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a prewritten message.
  
• SSL (secure server), Shopping Cart, MySQL
  
  If you planning a business website then you need to look for a web host that provides these two features. SSL is a must if you are collecting credit card information.
  
  MySQL is a powerful database that runs on Linux operating system. It has the capability to process million of entries all at once. It is ideal for database intensive or e-commerce websites.
  
  
• CGI, Perl, PHP
  
  CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a simple protocol to communicate between Web forms and your program. Perl is a common programming language that writes CGI scripts. With CGI scripts you can add guest books, page counters, shopping carts, form mail and other interactive features to your web pages. PHP is an open-source scripting language that does what CGI does. Check to see if they are available.
  
  Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about programming. Some web hosts provide standard features like counters and shopping carts. Login to your account and go to the control panel and add these standard features to your web pages by coping and pasting the code into your html source.
  
  

2. Customer Support

• How fast is the response time? Within 24 hours is super. 24 – 48 hours is acceptable. If you are still waiting after 48 hours, forget it.
  
  
• How’s the quality of the customer service? Do they provide the right solution to your problem?
  
  
• Does the web host have a large database for immediate answers without seeking direct assistance of customer service staff?
  

3. Uptime of web server and speed of access

What’s the guaranteed uptime of the web server? Don’t settle for anything less than 99.8 percent. Horror of horrors when visitors arrived at your website just to find it’s not accessible or when ‘web spiders’ come to index your website and it’s not accessible.

4. Stability of the business

Find out what others are saying about the web host. Look at its clients. Are big companies among its clients? If big companies use it, chances are it is a stable business. There's no doubt you have to pay more to enjoy premium service.

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