The Best Information For Finding Your New Web Host Today
When you are looking for the right web hosting service provider for you, there is a lot that you have to ask yourself because there are thousands of web hosting companies out there and they all have unique plans to offer you. To get the right plan, you have to look at every aspect and decide which things you need more of than others.
If you are looking for your first time hosting to put your attempt at making a web site public, or you are an expert, you can always use the advice to make sure that you get the right web hosting plan for your particular situation.
The first thing that you have to look at is the platform for the web server. The majority of web hosting services run with either Windows or Linux/Unix. The choice for what one you use is based on the technology aspect that is implemented to build your web site. If you are using stuff like ASP or VB to create your web site, you will use a Windows server because that is technology with Microsoft. On the other hand, if you are using stuff like PHP or Perl, you will use a Linux/Unix based server because these are ‘open source’ technologies.
The next thing that you have to look at are the features that are offered on the plan. After you figure out if you are using Windows or Linux/Unix, you will have to look through all of the different features and decide which ones are more important to you. There are more features being added to plans on a daily basis but only some of them are very important.
Below is a list of some of the most important features to make sure that you have on your plan in good proportions.
Disk Space
Bandwidth
Backups
Uptime
Domains Allowed
Databases (Number & type)
CGI, PHP, Perl, Python, SSI
Cron
The list is virtually endless but those are just a few so you can get the idea of what to look for. You will have to make sure that the web hosting plan you are getting your web site on is going to work out in the long run because it can be hectic when you run into a problem because of your limitations.
The next thing that you will have to look at is the cost. While most plans are not really that expensive (starting from around $2-4/month for the lowest plan), the average webmaster will probably dish out around $10/month for fees for a simple web hosting plan.
Some people will base their decision on what plan to get based on the cost only – don’t do this! If you are really on a budget, you should go for the second cheapest deal because the cheapest deal is usually a big waste of money. You are getting yourself into stressful downtimes, slow loading speeds, extra hidden fees, and a lot of pains in the ass if you put money in front of quality.
You can pay by the year to get a discount at most hosting providers and that is totally your decision. If you know that the specs of that host are perfect for you, that won’t change, and 12 months down the road, you still need the service – go for it if you can afford it at the time.
Going down the line, customer service is rather important and most of the bigger hosting companies don’t offer a good customer service. The one on one assistance is usually a lot better with the small and private hosting companies but they are usually not as strong of a service. You should have 24/7 service all year round with your plan, don’t expect anything less for your money because your web site has to be up all the time. This means assistance via phone, email, or live chat.
You should research the experience that the web host has and see other peoples past experiences to make sure that it is a reliable host. A lot of the time, the most well known hosts are not the best bet so you look for the mid-sized ones and have to do a bit of extra research so you don’t get yourself into a mess. Statistically, almost all web hosting companies end up closing in under a year – maybe 1-2% actually survive.
An important thing is also the uptime that the web hosting plan offers. It is true that a web host can not stay up all the time because servers will need to get rebooted for safety reasons, software upgrades and a few other reasons. Web hosts that don’t update frequently are risking themselves in being hacked so you should expect that you don’t get 100% uptime but you should get pretty close to it. The 99.9% uptime guarantee is what is floating around a lot, expect no less.
This article has delivered you a list of some of the most important things to look for in a web hosting plan – use it to your advantage.
Written by Admin on December 12th, 2008 with
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