If you have a website or want a website, you will need a website hosting company. The good news is that there are tons to choose from. The bad news is that you will need to learn a bit about web hosting in order to choose the one that is right for you. That is what we are going to discuss in this article, to help you choose the right web host for your business/personal website.
What is a web hosting company?
A web host provides the service that allows you to store the information that makes up your website. A web hosting provider stores your website information on a web server. Whenever you enter a web address into your browser, the browser requests your website information from the web hosting server and then the browser displays it on your screen. Basically, if you don’t have a web host or your own server, you don’t have a website. Some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) provide web space, but this is not the type of web hosting we will be talking about.
Types of hosting plans
The next thing you will need to know is that there are different types of hosting available to you. There is virtual/shared hosting. What that means is that the web hosting company hosts more than one account on that server. There’s also dedicated, which basically means you’ll get your own server. Another type (which is not as common as the first two) is VPS (Virtual Private Server) and what it is, they are “virtual” servers on the real server and user can add different modules inside their server. User can also assign how much CPU usage or easy memory module gets. Most users will generally only need shared hosting unless you have a large website with 5,000+ visitors per day and large scripts. If that’s the case, you’ll need dedicated hosting.
Types of operating systems
There are three different types of server operating systems. There is Linux, Unix and of course Windows. Just because your computer is a PC doesn’t mean you have to opt for Windows web hosting. The operating system you use on your desktop has little to do with your choice of web hosts. As long as you understand how to use your FTP or web publishing software, you can use any operating system.
When it comes to web hosting, Linux has been considered the best operating system for web servers for some time. It is generally considered to be the most reliable, stable and efficient system. If your website, like most websites, is what could be called a “brochure” then Linux servers are ideal. A website hosted on a Linux operating system will have very high uptime and very low downtime.
If you intend to build your website using ASP, FrontPage, the .NET framework, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of Microsoft’s other proprietary technologies, then you probably need to use a Windows host. All other languages can be hosted on either platform. Basically, unless you’re specifically using features that are exclusive to one platform or another, your time will be much better spent looking for a very good quality host than a very good quality server.
If you have your own site, you’ll probably want to have email addresses on your own domain, like [email protected]. Does the host provide this with the package? Does it allow you to have a general email account that allows [email protected] to end up being routed to you? Will you have the option to send automatic responses for your email accounts? Can you retrieve your email with your email software? Can it be automatically forwarded to your current email address? Can you check your email on the web? These are questions to ask yourself when looking for the right web host.
inactivity time
This is extremely important. A website that goes down frequently will lose many visitors. If someone finds your site in the search engine and clicks on it to find it unavailable, they will simply shop elsewhere. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors. How do you know if a web host is reliable or fast? The best way to find information about a web hosting company is to search the net. Once you’ve decided on a web host to check out, type its name into Google. When you review the results, you’ll see that some of the pages that appear are actually reviews for that company. Now look at the review websites to see what everyone else is saying about potential web hosting companies. Remember to take reviews with a grain of salt. As reviews can usually be posted by anyone anonymously and you can’t please everyone all the time!
Traffic or data transfer
Data transfer is the number of bytes transferred from your website to visitors when they browse your website. Always look for details about how much traffic the package allows. To give you a rough idea of typical website traffic requirements, most new websites are likely to use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your website gets bigger and more popular. You will need to check if you will be automatically charged for exceeding your bandwidth limit or if you are expected to pay upfront. Personally, with my web server I have 30 GB of data transfer and I host 7 domains and a subdomain. Currently I only use 750 MB/month. My websites have a total of 30,000 visits per month and have around 2 million visits/month.
Price
Unfortunately price is always a factor. You should realize that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best. Your best bet would be to go with a web host that is neither cheap nor expensive, but somewhere in between.
Technical support
Is the technical support of the web hosting company working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, throughout the year? Make sure you get a response from the web hosting company quickly, not just the next day. Another thing to check is that the phone number they provide is actually answered by a real person. This I know from personal experience. Make sure it’s not an automated system that ends up with an answering machine asking you to leave your name and number. In addition to the speed of responses, check to see if they are technically proficient. You wouldn’t want to subscribe to a kid-run host. would you do it?