How to Choose a Right Web Hosting
Service?
Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your
website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web
hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages.
Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before
you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web
host seeker:
Web hosting features requirement
This is probably the most important consideration to start
finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical
requirements for your website, this including:
a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as
Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft
Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a
web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or
Windows 2000 servers.
Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as
Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that
support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting
requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware
requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your
need. For more information, you can read "How to select a web server and
server platform?"
b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before
selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend
to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web
pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you.
In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your
hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with
enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should
consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500
MB to 1,000 MB.
Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your
site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high
traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you
will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with
40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement,
choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk
space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs
in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth
allowance.
c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting
features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support
video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service
compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan
to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce
features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of
that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided,
number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic),
type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account),
database and scripting languages supported and etc.
Reliability and scalability
A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server
uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting
service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet
backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per
second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting
provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with
high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with
fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software
protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in
the terms of service.
Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with
hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow
with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space,
bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as
needed without any problems.
Customer service and support
The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting
service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer
service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider
that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded
with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will
be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to
consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few
inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in
less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer
support if they take more than one day to response.
In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support
should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone
support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive
flash tutorials and FAQ.
Above are few major considerations before you choose your
web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in
business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a
good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the
stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is
also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the
price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to
competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services
offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10
per month. If you can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't
in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a
major deciding factor.
On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web
hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting
requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying
speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as
offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting
requirement, you can take advantage of our site,
Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services
that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.
Andrew Loh is the owner of
Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail
reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/ |
