With thousands of website hosts out there, it can often be hard to choose the one that will work best for you. With a little bit of work, however, you can pick out the perfect host.
Focus on Your Needs
What is your website going to do? Do you need a lot of storage space and bandwidth? Or can you get by with just a little? Do you need email addresses @yourdomain.com? Or are you going to use a Yahoo! Mail account (or similar)? What about databases, and spam filters, and website builders?
Develop a list of all the features your site will use - this list will be your key to finding a website host that fits you. On this list, you also might want to include those things that you think your site will need in the not-too-distant future. While it's not as hard as it used to be, switching web hosts can still be pretty complicated.
What Kind of User Are You?
Next, you'll want to determine what kind of user you are. Are you new to the Internet? If so, 24/7 phone support may be best for you. If you're a power user, however, you can probably do just fine with a host that offers only email or ticket support. The more you know, the less you'll have to be in touch with your hosting company. Just make sure that there is indeed a way to get in touch with your hosting company if you need to. If you can't find any contact information on the host's site, this is a red flag and you should probably stay away.
You'll also want to make sure that you will receive a response from your host in a timely fashion - having to wait two or three days just to get an email back is ridiculous. Make sure that your host offers a response-time guarantee somewhere on its site, before you sign up with them. If you can't find it listed on their site, contact them and see how long it takes for them to respond. The ideal response time is a few hours - the absolute maximum amount of time it should take is a day.
Your Budget
How much can you afford to spend for your hosting account? As it is with buying anything else, you get what you pay for. That $1.95-a-month host may offer a really great value, but will they be there for you when you need them? Many of the ultra-low-priced website hosts are not turning a profit, and have not been in business very long - and probably won't be for much longer. To check and see how long your host has been around, enter their domain name here: www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jhtml. The Registration Date field shows when the domain name was registered, so you can tell how long they've been around.
That's not to say that every low-priced host lacks. HostGator and Site5 both have many happy clients and offer prices around the $6.95-a-month price point. And you can find good website hosts that offer service for $3.95-a-month or $4.95-a-month. But I don't recommend going any lower than that. Judging by posts on online communities such as WebHostingTalk, going with a cheap host just does not pay.
Reliability
Another important thing to find out is the uptime of any of the hosts you're looking at. Many hosts have an uptime guarantee that is usually around 99.9%. One thing you need to be aware of, however, is that this uptime guarantee does not apply to attacks such as Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks, or to acts of God. What these uptime guarantees do cover are things like hardware failure and server operating system crashes. If you can't find specific uptime information on a host's website, call them or email them and see if they'll share this information with you - if they do not, move on to someone else.
Where to Look for a Host
Now that we've covered the basic points of what to look for in a web host, it's time to talk about where you go to find the perfect host for you. There are many sites available for this, such as WebHostDir.com, TheHostingNews.com , etc. You can also conduct a Google search for 'website host' or 'website host directory'. In addition, visit a forum such as WebHostingTalk to see what other folks are saying about different website hosts. Many users come to WebHostingTalk to post both positive and negative reviews of their hosts.
Conclusion
The main thing is to pick a web host that you are comfortable with and that works well for you. You'll know when you've found the one that's right for you - it will meet your website requirements, you'll feel comfortable with its support, you'll know you can afford it, you will have confirmed its reliability, and you'll know that its other clients are satisfied as well.
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Sunday, November 15, 2009
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The Quick and Easy Guide to Choosing a Web Host |
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Types of Web Hosting |
First of all we must determine the meaning of the word “hosting”. So, what is hosting?
Hosting origins from the word “host” which has different meanings that are familiar to you. Hosting means providing place for your website on the web hosting company’s servers and makes it viewable in the Internet
and floating it.
Why can you once need hosting?
Imagine that you have created a website and now you are wondering how
your friends and acquaintances can see it. You place it in your personal computer, but then you come to know that it’s dangerous for your computer’s safety and needs permanent Internet connection. So it causes a lot of inconveniences for you. To avoid them there is web site hosting.
There are different kinds of web site hosting. Let’s have a good look at them:
1.Shared or virtual hosting
2.Dedicated hosting/ server, Co-location
3.VDS/VPS –Virtual Dedicated Server/Virtual Private Server
Before choosing some type of web hosting it’s necessary to consider the way you are going to use it.
Free Shared hosting
If you want to host some non-profit-making or your personal web site it’d be more profitable to use basic shared hosting for no fee. This type of web site hosting is a rather logical choice if you are a junior in web site building or if you want to try some new idea and don’t want to pay. But of course you don’t have to suppose it to grant your site the best conditions, such as proper bandwidth and disk space. Some other features can also be limited, I mean MySQL, PHP support. It often also provides poor web statistics.
Paid Shared hosting
Almost all small businesses, intermediate and large professional sites use shared hosting, ‘cause they don’t need the whole server’s space and besides the whole server costs much. With shared/virtual hosting such necessary features, as multiply e-mail, MySQl, PHP, are supported. The main disadvantage is decrease of your site’s security.
Dedicated hosting /Server
This type of hosting is the best choice for those, who need much storage and bandwidth, and are good in server administration. You’ll be able to use all necessary software, but if you don’t have enough knowledge to administrate your server it will be a little bit difficult for you.
Co-location
It’s a sub type of dedicated hosting and can be compared with your own house which was built specially for you, with your favorite furniture and all. It’s built on your hoster’s (ISP) ground. This service is implied to fulfill only your tasks and is designed for your needs alone. And it’s cost is correspondingly high.
VDS/ VPS
Virtual private server is a type of web site hosting that is based on dividing a physical server into several virtual ones. It costs less though gives same possibilities as Dedicated server. Now, when we’ve examined different types of hosting services, you can decide which type of hosting is the most suitable for you.
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Low Cost Web Hosting |
If you are an individual who wants to show off your interests, special qualities, hobbies, e.t.c. to your friends or anybody outside; then it is the best idea to go for a low cost web hosting or even a free web hosting.
Even for small businesses, low cost web hosting would be the best option to get the maximum exposure for their company, their products and their services. As we all know web hosting is the must for any type of business whether it is small or big. But putting in huge amounts in web hosting for smaller or start up companies is not viable in the most cases and hence cheap web hosting is the great solution for this problem.
Also if it's your first website, a personal page or many other factors you may choose to go the lost cost web hosting route. In order to have a good website though, there are some things you need to be aware of and look for in a low cost web hosting provider. They are:
1. Storage:
Especially if you want images with your low cost web hosting solution, storage is important. Many low cost hosting services are free for the first 10mb and then start billing you in order to get more storage. Find a host that has at least 50mb of storage so that you don't risk running out. While 50 MB might not sound like a lot, many of the sites you visit each day likely aren't much larger then that in size. For starting out this is more then adequate space.
2. Advertisements
Being a low cost web hosting solution, the ISPs some how have to make money, so ads are expected. Lots of low cost web hosting solutions though go overboard with Popup and float-ins, as well as banner ads and plenty more. Try and find a low cost web hosting provider that has non obtrusive advertising. Generally the number of ads goes hand in hand with just how low the price is. So a Dollar a month web hosting or free hosting you can expect a lot of ads.
In short, you need to find a safe low cost web hosting solution that provides you with plenty of storage and no over the top advertising. This way you are ensured to have pleasant experience having your site with low cost web hosting. Also don't forget it's not just your experience but those of your visitors as well, if you're limited to what you can have on your site, or there are hundreds of ads flying at your visitors screen, you'll have a hard time stopping them from clicking the back button.
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Web Hosting Guide for Beginner |
First and foremost, for non-IT savvy, it might be a little tough for them to comprehend the meaning of web hosting. I believe if you search it on any search engine, of course there will be answer and explanation for them. But, how far do you really understand? Honestly, when I first get to know this term few years back, I had problem understanding myself. Then, I found one simple explanation that might be easy for people to understand. So, today, if anyone were to ask me what is "web hosting", i'd explain as follows...
Imagine you are homeless and you want to rent a room or buy a house. In order to get a shelter for yourself, you need a room. So, you imagine yourself as the website and the room as the hosting that you need to place yourself in. That means your website need a web hosting. Then, that's the time you start finding yourself a web hosting provider. Here, web hosting provider would be the house owner who rents you the room. So, in order for your website to be available and browsed by Internet users, you need to make sure your website is hosted in a web server provided by a web hosting provider.
So, when you finally understand what web hosting is, next will be the time to find out more about the different types of web hosting available. You have shared hosting, dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and colocation hosting. You name it, the Internet has it! So many to remember and differentiate..so, let's get the ball rolling with...
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting means that a web server has its resources shared by many other websites. Or you can put it as, in a house, there are many tenants. Usually small or normal e-commerce businesses will choose this type of hosting. Websites with high traffic might not be able to choose this type of hosting due to insufficient webspace.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting refers to hosting in which you rent a server from your web hosting provider and will be placed at your web hosting provider's datacentre. They will provide software installation and connection to Internet. This will indicates that the website owner has control over the server as they don't share it with other websites. In short, dedicated hosting is where only 1 user hosted on the server machine and have a full privilege over the server to manage it by themself. The server machine will be still belongs to the web hosting provider.
Colocation Hosting
Well, this hosting has the features which are almost the same as dedicated hosting EXCEPT that you provide your own server and web hosting provider just help you to plug it into their datacentre. You need to install own software and hardwares. Everything is DIY.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting is a hosting where the account owner has the priviledge to allocate the webspace and bandwidth access and resell them to his clients. This shows that reseller hosts act like a middleman and is usually not responsible for any software or hardware intallation. They only buy webspace and resell to clients.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It is almost the same as dedicated server. Hence, it's sometimes called Virtual Dedicated Server. Generally, it means that the account owner has the feeling as though his owns a dedicated server. In real sense, it's actually separating a physical server into several independent hosting spaces or VPS-es, each isolated from the other.This will allow you to create and manage multiple sites and domains and take full control of your VPS with root/administrator access which allows you to access the virtual hard disk, RAM and to reboot your private server independently from other VPS-es.
Domain Name
After we are done with the different types of hosting, there is something else which I want to touch on. It is none other than the "domain name". So, ever wonder what is domain name? Wow, sounds technical? Not really actually. Don't be scared. Last time, when I saw the words domain name, it freaked me out too. Now, when I got used to it, it's not that nerve-wracking after all. So, domain name is just the normal web address or url (Uniform Resource Locator) you type in the "address" area when you open a browser. Examples of domain name are "exabytes.com". You know? Just the normal web address. Well, since it's a web address, it's a unique name. Hence, there will be no other same domain name. In fact, domain name is actually corresponding with numeric IP address. So, every domain name will have its numeric IP address. For example, the IP address for exabytes.com is 72.18.131.206
When you see exabytes.com, ever wonder ".com" stands for what? It actually stands for commercial. Whenever you see .com, .org, .net or others which ends after the final dot or period (.) of a url, it is known as top-level domain. It actually tells you what kind of website it is, indirectly. And the commonly used domain name extension nowadays will be .org, .net, .com. However, there are a lot of new domain extension up for grab lately such as .aero, .info, .museum, and .name. Next in the list that I shall explain is, Country Level Domain Name. Examples of country level domain name is exabytes.com.my. It has ".my" as its country code top-level domain (ccTLD). .my here represents the country "Malaysia". Of course, different country will have different ccTLD. For example, .jp stands for Japan, .au for Australia, .ca for Canada.
There are more to learn in order to excel in web hosting industry. Hopefully this simple guide will help all those novice out there. There are other things you need to know as well. But, it will be in my next article. Cheers!
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Tips for Choosing a Good Web Host |
1. Starts with you. Determine your needs. Space, bandwidth and budget.
a) Space – Cover your needs and allow for expansion if needed.
b) Bandwidth- Same as above.
c) Budget – Set a realistic budget for yourself. How much are you willing to spend? Lowest price too highest. Being a little flexible on your price will give more hosting choices.
2. Follow some basic guidelines for even considering a hosting provider.
a) Does the host have phone number? At the very least a web host should provide you with a contact phone number. This doesn’t have to be a 24-hour a day number but your future host should be available during normal business hours in their respective time zone. A toll free shows a willingness to provide convenience for their customers.
b) Do they provide at least 24/7 Support Desk? Support is important, this is a must. You should have access to support 24 hours a day. Test the support desk. Choose anytime of the day or night and contact the support desk to test response times, ask any questions you might have. A response time under an hour is good; less than thirty minutes is considered excellent.
c) Take a good look at their web site. This sometimes can be over looked but I believe this says something very important about the hosting company. If they care about how they present themselves to the public, they are more apt to care about other things like service and maintaining a high reputation.
d) The hosting company should provide you with an Acceptable Use Policy, Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy as well. It is in your best interest that you read these policies and understand them before you pay for services.
e) Do they have an Uptime Guarantee? We won’t set a number on this but a hosting provider should be willing to disclose what their commitment to service is. A professional company will have this included in their Terms of Service.
f) Do they provide a Money Back Guarantee? Again, this should listed in their Terms of Service.
g) Payment Options – A host should provide their customers with more than one payment option. Credit cards and other payment option such as PayPal or something comparable.
3. Make a list of at least four to five possible hosting providers that fit your needs from the guidelines above and do some research.
a) Search these forums and others to see what type of information you can find on the host.
b) Compare features and price of the hosts on your list.
c) Contact the host either by phone, email or support desk and ask any questions you might have.
d) Check Testimonials – If the host has a list of testimonials if possible send an email to one of those customers and ask for their feedback on the host. Most people are happy to give a recommendation. This can also help determine if the testimonial real or a fabrication.
e) Finally you might want to consider doing a ping test if you can, check some customers web sites if listed, see how fast they load.
f) Make your choice, sign up and good luck.
There are so many hosting companies out there today, and the choices are close to endless. These guidelines are not fool proof in anyway but if you follow them you will have a better chance finding a host that you can trust in delivering quality service and save you from moving from host to host. In twelve years of buying web hosting and dedicated servers I have never once had a provider suddenly disappear on me in the middle of the night. Good luck and good hunting.
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Here are some simple steps in choosing a host |
1. Do your research here and on the internet to find a host that works for you.
2. Every host has had some problems, but that doesn't make them bad.
3. If you find a host that's too good to be true, it probably is. Just remember this, you get what you pay for.
4. There's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth and storage space, so don't waste your time with hosts that offer this.
5. Once you find a host ask questions to see if they fit your needs, and see how long it takes for them to respond.
6. Go with a host that has a 30 day money back gaurantee.
7. I have nothing agains't one year hosting payments up front, but if you're starting out it's better to pay monthly.
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How To Pick The Best Web Hosting Company |
There are a lot of Web Hosting Company. First you should choose Good and Reputable company, then you should Filter that to the Best. Here is the criteria to pick the best Web Hosting Company.
Back End/Network Operations Centers
This is where your accounts are actually housed. Sometimes a hosting provider will lease a part of a larger network and sometimes a hosting provider will develop their own. It is important to find out what kinds and how many fiber optic connections the NOC has. Make sure there is plenty of redundancy built in. Make sure the NOC is managed 24/7, even on holidays. Make sure there are fire suppression systems in place. Last but not least, ask about security. Make sure there are plenty of security measure in place.
Customer Service
Are they friendly? Do they answer their telephones? Are you put on hold and if so, for how long? If you have to leave a message, do they respond quickly? Does the rep on the other end know what they are talking about? Look at their network page and see if they have reports of down time or issue statements about problems.
Technical Support
How long does it take to get questions answered and tasks performed. Send a test support message and gauge the response times. See if they offer 800 toll free support.
Ticketing Systems
Do they have a ticketing system that tracks performance times. This is key. If a hosting company has this, they are serious about improving internally.
Domain Names
Do they offer domain name sales? This can help to consolidate your vendor costs. See about getting a discount on domains if you are buying in bulk on a monthly basis.
Branding You
Does the hosting provider offer branded support? As you grow, you will need to expand and see if the hosting provider will set you up with your own technician in your company name. Do they offer branded control panels and name servers? You need these tools to grow. Find out how easy it is to set these features up for your own account.
Scalable Discounts
If you are growing at a rapid rate, ask for better pricing and discounts. It is ok to ask. It's even better when you get it and will
reduce your overhead.
Financial Overview
Is that particular company in the red of black? Do they have a good cash flow? How fast is the host growing and can they handle the growth? What are they doing to grow and maintain the customer service level you expect. Are they near a buy out or planning
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How to Select a Webhost that Fits Your Needs |
Whether you're considering starting a website or you have one and want to possibly move it, this article can help you decide what the best webhost means to you.
To begin, every website is hosted on only 3 platforms: Unix, Windows NT, Macintosh
Very few sites are hosted on a MAC server, so the majority of webhosts use Unix or NT. For these reasons we will focus on only those 2 platforms.
Unix and NT both offer various options and have different abilities. Your choice of which platform to use depends on what applications you want your site to run and the amount of control you want to have over your site.
Unix
Unix is the oldest and one of the most widely used operating systems. It is the basis of the internet and most webservers originally ran on a version of Unix. Unix is know as a multitasking operating system which means that it can run many applications at the same time without them affecting each other. This is very important when you consider that hundreds of websites, running thousands of CGI scripts, all receiving thousands of hits could be running on one webserver.
Why Use It?:
It's reliable Ability to host many websites on the same machine. Almost all CGI scripts run better on Unix. Programming flexibility. Much more administrative control.
With Unix, webmasters can really tweak their websites (assuming they know what they are doing) to run at optimal levels. Developers can run CGI scripts and create applications specific to their needs.
Down Sides:
Is case sensitive. It is not an easy operating system to learn. Must use telnet or Ftp to make changes.
Windows NT
NT is a relative newcomer to the webhosting game but it is fast gaining a large share of the business. NT was built to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft's web authoring tool, Frontpage. As such, it is often the perfect solution for newcomers who do not want to learn HTML or CGI programming or deal with the day to day hassles of administering a webserver.
Up Sides:
Can use Microsoft Frontpage to publish your website as opposed to using Ftp or telnet. Can use Cold Fusion. Somewhat easier to administer (especially for the average webmaster). Is not case sensitive.
If you do not plan on learning the in's and out's of the web and administering your site, NT is probably your tool of choice.
Down Sides:
Provides poorer security than Unix. Because of the security issues, the hosting provider will usually institute tighter security measures. Cannot run all CGI scripts although this is changing.
Your needs as the webmaster and your visitors needs will determine the type of webhost and the platform you need.
Once you have done some more research into what platform you need, stop by an independent website like: http://www.tophosts.com and choose one of the top 25 hosts to fulfill your needs.
Some issues to consider while pondering which host to choose:
1.Uptime: This is probably the most critical piece of information you need to know to make an informed decision. How often a server goes down means lost business and lost sales and no one needs that. Our webhost is up 99.9% of the time as compared to the first one we had which was more like 25% of the time.|
2.Bandwidth Usage: Some hosts actually charge you for the amount of traffic you get once you pass a certain percentage. Why on earth would you want to be charged for that? Our webhost offers us unmetered traffic at no extra cost (this is what you should look for).
3.Server Space: Look for hosts that give 50-500 mg of space. As the technology changes sites will take up more space. You should try to get as much as you can right now even if you don't use it all.
4.CGI Access: This is critical. You need the ability to use CGI and especially custom CGI. If a host doesn't offer it, run screaming!
5.MSQL; Real Audio; Real Video; Cold Fusion: This is the future of the web and in particular web marketing. Make sure a host offers support for these applications even if you don't presently have a use for them.
You will be glad that you spent your time doing this research before you jump in and choose a host or switch to a host that provides you with nothing but problems. You deserve the best, go for it.
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Choosing Web Hosting OS (Operating System) |
First things you have to choose with web hosting plan is web hosting operating system. It could confusing to choose which is the best. Here is list of web hosting operating system and information about the performance.
Linux
Linux, a version of UNIX, is a very versatile platform that serves a number of functions well. It is particularly suitable for meeting your Internet requirements, such as mailing, streaming, Web serving, and fileserving. Linux is a very cost-effective choice it uses hardware efficiently, and allows for more web sites per server, thereby lowering the cost of hosting per account. Linux servers are compatible with certain Microsoft extensions and applications, for example, MS SQL (a database program) or Microsoft Front Page (a web authoring tool). Many engineers prefer the flexibility, security, and control of Linux servers. Linux is Open Source (free) software and a host of free programs are available to users of Linux.
Microsoft Windows NT/2000
Window's 2000 graphical user interface makes it user-friendly and provides a familiar interface for most IT teams to work with. It integrates well with other Microsoft applications and there are a wealth of commercial applications available for this platform. Particularly attractive is the integration with Microsoft Application Server (ASP) which allows the creation of dynamic web pages linked to SQL databases, and other Legacy back office systems.
Sun Solaris
Sun Solaris servers offer the highest level of resources and power - these are the most robust servers! Sun has a proven track record and is deployed in many large Fortune 500 corporations. It is a mature platform and there are a large number of applications and development tools available. Because of Sun's capacity and stability it is ideal for high-traffic functions, such as database servers, high-traffic Web servers and mission-critical servers.
Cobalt RaQ
The RaQ was designed for virtual (shared) hosting of multiple Web sites. It's simple administration makes it a great first Web server. Its flexible administration interface also allows you to share administration responsibilities among your staff.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a version of BSD that was designed for the X86 processor. FreeBSD is a very stable open source operating system, and a good alternative to Linux. It is an extremely well-integrated and tested system, and is inexpensive. There are a large number of free applications available for use with it
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Most Basic Feature on Web Hosting Plan |
Here's you should always look within the hosting plan :
Disk Space
Estimates your disk space, one html page usually +- 150 KB, 25MB Disk Space = 166 pages.
Bandwidth/Data Transfer
How to easily calculate bandwidth you need. First take size of all pages and images/multimedia in your web site. Let's say it 50MB then how many visitors to your web site? Maybe you estimate it would be 10000 visitors per month, then bandwidth you need for is 50 x 10000 = 500 000 MB = 500 GB Data Transfer/month. There're a lot of web hosting plan with unlimited bandwith package :).
Domain Name
If you don't have any domain name yet for your web site, you should see if web hosting package include domain name registration. Usually they include it in their plan. Average cost to register a domain name is between 8$ to 12$ per year.
E-mail Account
You need it as identity for your website, ex. you@yoursite.com, support@yoursite.com. You should see how many e-mail accounts provided for your web site. Additional features on e-mail account is E-mail Forwarding, E-mail Autoresponders, E-mail Aliases.
Control Panel
If you don't like FTP to upload your web sites, then you could upload it with control panel upload menu. It's easy and simple job to upload. Control panel is a web page to control your hosting account, add e-mail accounts, see statistics of your web site etc.
Database
Did you need database? If you're using built-in script/CMS like mambo, joomla, PHPNuke, Forums like VBulletin, phpBB, or shopping cart, etc. then you need database for your web site. How many database you need? for all scripts above usually you just need 1 database account. Another consideration is how many space is for your database. I found two kind of database space offered by web hosting company, first they include it in your web space (web space = web space + database space) other is they specify space for your database.
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Basic Features to Choose |
1. 24/7 reliable tech support
2. Your own domain name (www.yourname.com)
3. At least 10GB of monthly transfer (traffic)
4. A minimum of 20MB - 50MB of server space
5. Unlimited true POP email accounts - name@yourdomain.com
6. Unlimited email aliases
7. Email forwarding
8. Unlimited autoresponders
9. Your own unrestricted CGI-Bin
10. Access to SSL Encryption for secure transactions
11. MySQL Database
12. Perl
13. htaccess password protection
14. Server Side Includes (SSI) support
15. Design (and upload to) your site using Netscape or
other HTML editing software
16. Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions for those
utilizing FrontPage
17. Unlimited free access to your server via FTP/Telnet
18. Easy access to your log files
19. Statistics on visits to your site
20. Referral Program
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Ask Web Hosting Company Before You Buy |
Before you actually buying web hosting plan you'll have question, is this web hosting I want to host my website? If you look around hosting company web site there are always not enough information. So asking them is better than going with hesitation. This example I made to ask hosting company support center by e-mail.
Dear {hosting company name},
I am interesting with web hosting solution offered in your web site. I have a site that need hosting, my site is forum web site based on PHP, One MySQL Database, and a lot of images. I found one of your hosting plan which is {name of hosting plan}
suit my needs. I just need to ask some question to make me sure choosing your hosting plan.
What payment options are available? What is the options for payment period?
Is there a trial period or money-back guarantee?
Is that price included setup fee?
Is there discount price for that plan?
What is the options to upgrade?
What is server specs for that plan?
Will I have my own IP address or is it shared?
What type of support do you offer? Email? Phone? Public? Hours? Limit? Average Response Time?
Will I have shell account?
What are control panel features to manage my web site?
How long will it take, from the time I submit my order, for me to have access to the site and begin developing?
etc.
Please feel free to explain anything you think I might have missed. Let me know of any reason you would be suitable or unsuited for my site.
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How to Choose a Web Host |
What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap. Since thesitewizard.com caters to people who might be looking for either of these types of hosting, I will deal with each of these in turn. If you are only interested in one of these types, you can simply skip to the appropriate section. I have written these sections to be as independant of the other as possible.
Choosing a Free Web Host
Advertising
Most free web hosts impose advertising on your website. This is done to cover the costs of providing your site the free web space and associated services. Some hosts require you to place a banner on your pages, others display a window that pops up everytime a page on your site loads, while still others impose an advertising frame on your site. There is really no hard and fast rule which is to be preferred: some people hate a pop-up window, other webmasters dislike having to stuff banner codes onto their pages, and many people cannot stand an advertising frame (which may cause problems when you submit your website to search engines). Whichever method is used, check that you're comfortable with the method.
Amount of web space
Does it have enough space for your needs? If you envisage that you will expand your site eventually, you might want to cater for future expansion. Most sites use less than 5MB of web space. Indeed, at one time, one of my other web sites, thefreecountry.com, used less than 5MB of space although it had about 150 pages on the site. Your needs will vary, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you need sound files, video clips, etc.
FTP access
Some free hosting providers only allow you to design your page with their online builder. While this is useful for beginners, do you have the option to expand later when you become experienced and their online page builder does not have the facility you need? FTP access, or at the very least, the ability to upload your pages by email or browser, is needed. Personally, I feel FTP access is mandatory, except for the most trivial site.
File type and size limitations
Watch out for these. Some free hosts impose a maximum size on each of the files you upload (including one with a low of 200KB). Other sites restrict the file types you can upload to HTML and GIF/JPG files. If your needs are different, eg, if you want to distribute your own programs on your pages, you will have to look elsewhere.
Reliability and speed of access
This is extremely important. A site that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site on the search engine, and he tries to access it but find that it is down, he'll simply go down the list to find another site. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors (and for you too, when you upload your site). How do you know if a host is reliable or fast? If you can't get feedback from anyone, one way is to try it out yourself over a period of time, both during peak as well as non-peak hours. After all, it is free, so you can always experiment with it.
CGI-BIN access / PHP
This is not particularly crucial nowadays for a free web host, since there are so many free CGI hosting services available that provide counters, search engines, forms, polls, mailing lists, etc, without requiring you to dabble with Perl or PHP scripts.
However if you really want to do it yourself, with the minimum of advertising banners from these free providers, you will need either PHP or CGI-BIN access. Note that it is not enough to know they provide PHP or CGI-BIN access: you need to know the kind of environment your scripts run under: is it so restrictive that they are of no earthly use? For PHP scripts, does your web host allow you to use the mail() function? For Perl CGI scripts, do you have access to sendmail or its workalike?
Bandwidth allotment
Nowadays, many free web hosts impose a limit on the amount of traffic your website can use per day and per month. This means that if the pages (and graphic images) on your site is loaded by visitors beyond a certain number of times per day (or per month), the web host will disable your web site (or perhaps send you a bill). It is difficult to recommend a specific minimum amount of bandwidth, since it depends on how you design your site, your target audience, and the number of visitors you're able to attract to your site. In general, 100MB traffic per month is too little for anything other than your personal home page and 1-3GB traffic per month is usually adequate for a simple site just starting out. Your mileage, however, will vary.
Choosing a Commercial Web Host
Reliability and speed of access
Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low - it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end - the host usually requires all sorts of documentation. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.
Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)
Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as "traffic" or "bandwidth") is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.
Don't believe any commercial web host that advertises "unlimited bandwidth". The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exhorbitant bill for having "exceeded" the "unlimited bandwidth". Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises "unlimited transfer", even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine "unlimited" to be limited in some way.
To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that are not software archives or the like use less than 3GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known (and well-linked), so you will need to also check their policy for overages: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.
Disk space
For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those "unlimited disk space" schemes. Most sites need less than 5MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 200MB or 500MB (or "unlimited space"), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don't let the 500MB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there. As a rough gauge, thefreecountry.com, which had about 150 pages when this article was first written, used less than 5MB for its pages and associated files.
Technical support
Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn't want to sign up for a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.
FTP, PHP, Perl CGI-BIN access, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH crontabs
If you are paying for a site, you really should make sure you have all of these. Note that some commercial hosts do not allow you to install PHP or CGI scripts without their approval. This is not desirable since it means that you have to wait for them before you can implement a feature on your site. ".htaccess" is needed if you are to customise your error pages (pages that display when, say, a user requests for a non-existent page on your site) or to protect your site in various ways (such as to prevent bandwidth theft and hotlinking, etc). Telnet or SSH access is useful for certain things, including testing CGI scripts, maintaining databases, etc. Cron jobs may be needed for programs that you need to be run periodically (eg once a day). Check to see if these facilities are provided.
SSL (secure server), MySQL, Shopping Cart
If you are planning on doing any sort of business through your website, you might want to look out to see if the host provides these facilities. These facilities normally involve a higher priced package or additional charges. The main thing is to check to see if they are available at all before you commit to the host. You will definitely need SSL if you plan to collect credit card information on your site.
Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding
If you have your own site, you would probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like sales@yourdomain.com, etc. Does the host provide this with the package? Does it allow you to have a catch-all email account that allows anyname@yourdomain.com to wind up being routed to you? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software? Can it be automatically forwarded to your current email address?
Control Panel
This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I would not go for a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such chores are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.
Subdomains, virtual hosting
For those who are thinking of selling web space or having multiple domains or subdomains hosted in your account, you should look to see if they provide this, and the amount extra that they charge for this (whether it is a one-time or monthly charge, etc).
Server
Is the type of operating system and server important? Whether you think so or not on the theoretical level, there are a few practical reasons for looking out for the type of server.
In general, if you want to use things like ASP, you have no choice but to look for a Windows NT/2000/XP machine for your server.
Otherwise my preference is to sign up for accounts using the often cheaper, more stable and feature-laden Unix systems running the Apache server. In fact, if dynamically generated pages that can access databases (etc) is what you want, you can always use the more portable (and popular) PHP instead of tying yourself down to ASP. Another reason to prefer Unix-based web hosts (which include web hosts using systems like Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, etc) using the Apache web server is that these servers allow you to configure a lot of facilities that you typically need on your site (error pages, protecting your images, blocking email harvesters, blocking IP addresses, etc) without having to ask your web host to implement them. Knowledge about configuring Apache servers is also widely available, and can be found on thesitewizard.com's Configuring Apache and .htaccess pages as well.
Price
I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it's futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise that you often get what you pay for, although it's not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.
Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans
Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I'm assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I'm not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I'm dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after many months or even more than a year), when I'm satisfied with the host, I often change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.
Resellers?
Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don't know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.
International
If you don't stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.
Others' Reviews
You should make it a point to check out what others have to say about the web host. Some of the places you can do this include:
- The newsgroup news:alt.www.webmaster. As you should always do when reading reviews (of anything), read the reviews posted here with a pinch of salt. Some glowing reviews may come from people working for the web host itself, disguised as multiple satisfied customers. Likewise, negative reviews of a particular host can sometimes come from unscrupulous competitors of that host.
- thesitewizard.com's review, "Which Web Host Would You Recommend? (FAQ)", found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/webhosting.shtml
- Although not often, I sometimes make comments about a particular web host in my Budget Web Hosts page on thefreecountry.com as well.
Don't skip this step, or you might find yourself being suckered by a host that everyone else is steering clear of.
The Myth of the Perfect Commercial Host
In general, I doubt that there are any "perfect" web hosting companies around. Note that even if you are prepared to pay a huge price for your hosting needs, it does not guarantee that your host is any good. This is an interesting industry where a high price does not necessarily yield quality hosting and support.
On the other hand, one thing you can probably be sure of is that you will not get top-notched support if you only pay (say) $10 a month. At that price, which company can afford to hire enough good help to cater to all its users?
Like me, you'll probably wind up settling for a trade-off between price, reliability and features that you're willing to live with.
Copyright 2000-2003 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
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