How to choose a web hosting service
How to choose a web hosting service
When you need a web site for your business, personal use or even any other task there are several important factors you should take into consideration. Web hosting is not about large space or huge amounts of bandwidth. It is mainly about the quality of the service a web hosting provider extends to its customers. After designing a top quality website the next most important task is to find a top quality and reliable web hosting service provider in order to place your web site on the World Wide Web. And what is web hosting..? Web hosting is a service that allows users to post web pages to the Internet. A Web host, or hosting service provider (HSP), is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for Web sites to be viewed on the Web. Following are some of the most important factors you must take in to consideration before you make your investment on a hosting service. Having a clear understanding about your hosting requirements. This is the number one rule that you should observe before purchasing web hosting for your site. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what exactly you need. These requirements differ from person to person and company to company and therefore it is vital to precisely determine your needs and wants. Failure to do so can end up with having the wrong web hosting plan with features, that you need for the proper function of your web site, missing and spending money unnecessarily for something that does not fit into your needs and wants. So you must have a clear understanding about your hosting requirements The level of customer support being offered. This is another important factor that you should take into account when you are choosing a web host. Nowadays customer care plays a major role when it comes to any business; “Customer is the king”. So you should go for a web hosting company which treats its customers extremely well with careful attention to customer’s needs. Goviphosting.com is a web hosting company which considers the customer satisfaction as it’s key priority. There are several more secondary features a customer should look for in a professional web hosting company as far as the customer support is concern, -The level of sales support offered -The level of technical support offered -Responding time for a help ticket (ie.the average response time is within 60 minutes) -A fast, friendly and dedicated customer support team who are well trained to treat customers with due attention and regard
<p>Article by - Dev Liyanage - Dev</font> is an expert in the fields of eCommerce, SEO, web hosting, and e-marketing. He's a director at <b>Goviphosting.com</b> a <a href="http://www.goviphosting.com/linux-hosting-plans.htm">Linux web hosting</a> company which provides a range of services such as <a href="http://www.goviphosting.com/business-web-hosting.htm">business web site hosting</a>, <a href="http://www.goviphosting.com/frontpage-web-hosting.htm">Frontpage web hosting</a> and much more
Personal Web Hosting
Personal Web Hosting Personal web hosting has fueled a large part of the web hosting industry. Personal web hosts are booming selling powerful hosting plans tailored to personal homepages, blogs, digital photo albums, video files, etc. With Prices under $5/month personal web hosting plans are very affordable not to mention the full features. Most come with full control panels to manage emails, stats, and the website. Personal Hosting plans also come with a wide array of functionality already ready such as blogs or digital photo albums. A lot have a website builder tool that will let a non programmer build a website by following a set of options. These tools have become quite sophisticated and full of functionality. Even a novice can build a professional website without ever programming. When looking for a personal web hosting company, look for one that tailors to your needs. If you want to start a blog then go to a blog web hosting site. If you want to build your own website but do not know how to program then go to one that has a website builder tool. Make sure they have a demo of the tool and give it a try before you sign up. Do some research to make sure the website builder tool that the hosting company uses will have the features that you need. Most of all, your personal web hosting company should make your web hosting goals easy to achieve. If they do not then move on. The cost should also be very small. Do not pay more then $10/month and unless you have real special needs you should be able to get a nice hosting plan from a reputable web hosting company for less then $5/month. Go to web hosting directory websites and read hosting reviews of the potential personal web hosts that you are considering. Also, check out their website for helpful guides and tutorials. They should have everything you need to make publishing your website easy. If they do not then move on. They should have guides and FAQ s that answer common questions and explain the process. But also remember that you are purchasing a personal web hosting plan and not a dedicated server or virtual private server. You will get what you pay for. Plans for $5/month are also on shared servers with other customers. So, you will not have 99.9% uptime no matter what the web hosts says. A lot will promise this kind of uptime for their network or datacenter but not your server itself. But if it is truly a personal website then you will never notice these kinds of hiccups. Support is another aspect to examine when choosing a personal web host. Since you are not an expert you will need to make sure that the hosting company has experts that are always available. Email support should be adequate for personal websites, but they should respond to hosting support request within 1 hour. A good way to test this is to email their Support team a question and wait for their response. This will be a good indicator. Doing this in the middle of the night will also help test their response during off hours, which is inevitably when problems occur. Personal websites are also ideal for clubs, neighborhoods, teams, and churches. They allow any group or organization to publish news and coordinate activities. We even see people using personal hosting plans to just host photos for Ebay auctions. Another common use for personal websites are resumes. People will buy the domain name of their full name and post their resume there. This is an excellent way to network for job hunters. You can post links to their website in forums and online discussion groups. The next time you have the need for a website don t be intimidated. Go to a top web hosting resource website and pick one of the personal web hosting companies that they recommend. The personal hosting plan should be easy for the novice. It s time to take advantage of the internet and the expertise of web hosting companies. About HostChart.com HostChart, a Web Hosting Company Resource, is a leading web hosting directory website that has been in business for over 5 years. They provide numerous web hosting articles and tutorials as well as news, interviews, and reviews. You can use their extensive set of tools to research and evaluate your current or future web hosts. HostChart is a Property of Advantage1 Web Services, which also operates ResellerConnection.com, a a href=”http://www.resellerconnection.com”>Reseller Web Hosting Resource, HostingKnowledge.net, and FoundHost.com, a a href=”http://www.foundhost.com”>Budget Hosting Resource.
Rodney Ringler is President of Advantage1 Web Services, Inc., which owns a network of Web Hosting Informational Websites including <a href="http://www.hostchart.com">HostChart.com</a>, <a href="http://www.resellerconnection.com">ResellerConnection.com</a>, <a href="http://www.foundhost.com">FoundHost.com</a>, ResellerForums.com, and HostingKnowledge.net. Rodney has over 15 years industry experience from programming to internet marketing.
Choosing the Right Web Host
Choosing the right web host is a very important process that is all to often hurried through or; simply misunderstood. Choosing a web host is in fact one the most important parts of setting up an online business. You need a service that is fast; easy to use and understand; provides excellent support; and is serious enough about its operations to guarantee that your website will never be down unless the entire datacenter were completely demolished. Below is a list of the most common questions and answers to consider when looking for a web host. Understanding the different areas of web hosting and services available will help you to make a better educated decision when you do subscribe to a web hosting service. What is Web Hosting? Web hosting is the process of putting your web site on a web server or web host, so everyone connected to the Internet can see it. If you have a permanent connection to the Internet you could host your web site on your own computer, but that is in general not a good idea. A good web host is a real server in a datacenter with a fast high bandwidth connection to the Internet. And, to make sure you can move your web site to another web host, if necessary, you need a web hosting provider that supports domain hosting. What is Domain Hosting? Most Internet Service Providers (or ISP) will give you a free web site when they provide you with access to the Internet. They do this because they don’t want to give you a permanent IP address, which is what you need if you’d like to host a web site on your own computer. Unfortunately, most ISPs don’t support domain hosting with their free web sites. Hence, the URL of your web site is an extension of the URL of your ISP. So what happens when you change ISP? You will have to change the URL and nobody can find you anymore. The use of a domain name for your web site is absolutely necessary for a professional web site, and to host your own domain you will need to find a real web hosting provider with domain hosting. Many web hosting plans actually include the price of a domain registration, so don’t register your domain before you have chosen your web hosting company. What is Virtual Hosting? Virtual hosting is often used as a synonym for shared hosting, e.g. you host your web site on a web server with hundreds of other web sites and you share the IP address with these web sites. The term virtual hosting should imply, however, that while you share the web server it looks from the outside world that you are the only web site on that server. That means that with virtual hosting you should not only have your own IP address, but also a dedicated bandwidth to the Internet and a dedicated slice of the computers processing power. So, if a web hosting provider uses the term virtual hosting, have a close look if these features are offered before you decide on paying a premium price above standard shared hosting. What is Bandwidth? Bandwidth is a measure that reflects how much data can be transferred over a data communication channel. In web hosting plans the allowed bandwidth generally indicates how much data can be downloaded from your web site per month, and therefore indicates how many web pages and pictures your visitors are allowed to download. If the average amount of page views per visitor is assumed constant, the allowable bandwidth restricts how many visitors you are allowed to have per month. Just as important, however, is how fast the communication channel between your web host and the Internet is. The amount of data that can be transferred per second is also called the bandwidth of this channel, and this bandwidth is shared by all the web sites hosted by the same provider. If this bandwidth is insufficient, you’ll sometimes notice a slow down in the display of your web pages. In most cases, however, such a slow down is more likely to be caused by an overload on the web server itself. What is a web server? A web server is either a special computer or server for reliable hosting of web sites, or the software application that runs on that server. The two main web server applications used by most web hosting providers are Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) for windows hosting and Apache for Unix hosting. Both use the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to transfer web pages to your web browser. What is a datacenter? A datacenter is building, or part of a building, which offers a professional environment for running computer servers. A datacenter will generally have high speed connections to the Internet and other networks, as well as good security to protect against natural hazards, such as fire, and other hazards, such as intruders and hackers. Web Hosting Summary. In summary, what are the important things to look for when selecting a web host? 1. Price 2. Datacenter Standards 3. Easy access to a Control Panel 4. Easy to navigate Control Panel 5. 24 / 7 Support 6. Host supports scripting languages / databases required to operate your site 7. Multiple packages available (As your business grows you may need to upgrade. Make sure the web host provider will allow you to do this) This is really just the basics; although all very important things to consider. Most web host will have a FAQ file or Knowledgebase file available which you can read through before signing up. In most case cheap is not better; in most cases. However I must say the web host I am now using combines an impressive price with impressive services. Over the years I have used approximately 8 ” 10 different web hosts and HostGator.com is in my opinion one of the best I have ever used. But you can see for yourself here: http://www.hostgator.com Also, a big name in the industry that most everyone is familiar with is Yahoo. Yahoo also provides World Class Hosting services for all sizes of business. Yahoo services can be reviewed here: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com Make sure you go through the checklist above while browsing their site and you ll get a better feel for comparing web host services. Registering Your Domain? I have always used GoDaddy.com as do many other internet experts I have spoken with. I can safely recommend their service without hesitation. Good luck and as always feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions concerning this article or most any aspects of starting your own online business. Best regards, Joseph Murray http://www.aitechworld.com/affordablewebhosting.htm
Joseph Murray is a professional online retailer working full time since April 2006. The current project Ai Tech World is his second online venture; the first operating successfully since 2002.
Save Your Money When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider
When looking for a hosting service, besides reliability, reducing your overall costs over a period of time is something you should think about. In order to reduce your expenses there are several things to consider before signing up with a provider. For the purposes of this article, I am going to focus on hosting providers with shared hosting plans as they are suitable for home business people and small businesses.
Here are just a few tips to help you on your way:
-Multiple Domains
One of your first considerations is to notice your own plan. If you intend to build multiple websites for AdSense, you need to check how many domain names are allowed in the hosting package you are considering. Multiple Domain Hosting allows you to host multiple websites without having to open a separate account for each domain. But keep in mind that some providers place limits on these. They allow you to host several domains under one account as long as the number of domains hosted no more than five, for example.
-Additional Features
There are providers that offer a hosting service plus some additional facilities such as a sequential autoresponder service and a website builder. Unfortunately very often the price offered is as high as the price for using a virtual dedicated hosting. Everytime you meet a hosting plan like that, try to calculate the overal costs you will have to pay if you use similar facilities provided by other companies. For instance you may consider to use the autoresponder service provided by GetResponse.
-Supports
Make sure that the support is included in the cost of the hosting plan. There is no use in choosing a provider that put extra charges for setting up your new account or upgrading. Some web hosts charge extra fees at start up to put FrontPage on your site. If you use FrontPage, look for one that does not. Read the company’s TOS carefully.
-Overuse
Before contracting with any web host know what they charge for overuse as normally web hosts charge for extra bandwidth and disk space. To ensure access to your site is always available without having to spend extra money, choose a provider that provides large bandwidth and disk space.
-Money Making Programs
Don’t fall for this one. There are hosting companies that offer money making programs in order to attract customers. While these may be beneficial for you in the future, they can prevent you from thinking logically. What I mean here is don’t put the programs as your priority in order to get a reliable hosting service with the best price.
The last thing you should remember is that high cost does not always mean high quality because there is a competitive market for web hosting. On the other hand It has been seen many times that a consumer signs up for the least expensive provider putting himself in many technical difficulties and in the end he/she may have to decide on changing his web hosting provider. As any other things in this life, very often the answer lies in the middle. In other words choose the one that offers normal price for what are being offered. Research and explore what hosts will work best for you. You will find that you can shave costs in this market without shaving quality.
Heris Yunora is the owner of unlimitedhostingplan.com, a site that provides tips in choosing and utilizing a reliable hosting provider that allows you to host unlimited domains under one hosting account.