How Do I Choose a Web Hosting Company

If you're going to have a website that you will need to be create from scratch, (i.e. not a myspace.com, blogspot.com, etc), you're probably going to have to find somewhere to have it hosted. Problem is, there are a million places on the web to do that, and more cropping up everyday. Which leaves asking,"How Do I Choose a Web Hosting Company?"

What does your site NEED?

Sure, that's an obvious question, but it still merits serious scrutiny. One website varies from another by a plethora of different aspects, and it's these differences that will dictate which hosting solution is right for you.

Core Features

The first things to inspect on a hosting plan are disk space and bandwidth. You never want to be married to a plan that does not allow your site to grow, which can easily happen if your disk space and bandwidth limits are too low. For those of you who don't know what bandwidth is, it's the size of information that is transferred from your server when a user requests a file. For example, if a user tries to view your index.html page, and that page is 3 kilobytes in size and contains a 500 kilobyte picture, you will expend 503 kilobytes of bandwidth every time a user requests this page. And as they say, "the devil is in the details", so make sure you know what happens if you exceed your monthly bandwidth for the month. Some sites will automatically charge you per megabyte of overage! YIKES! Things could get rather pricey, rather fast.

Other Core Features

There are a million other features that hosts can provide, and the more important ones often deal with e-mail, scripting languages and various other technologies. As far as e-mail goes, you will want to look at how many accounts you can have, how you can access the e-mail, (POP, web mail, etc), and any other extras you may need or want there. Scripting language support allows you to write advanced functionality into your web pages. And unless you're looking for something in particular, you will probably be ok with whatever they give you. You should though at a minimum ensure your server can handle asp or php as they can allow your web pages to do some fancy things later on. Databasing can also be a useful feature, (even if you have no use for it initially), so keep an eye open for that too. Finally, and never to be overlooked, security is critical for your server, even if you won't be housing anything sensitive online.

Nice Extras

To get you to signup with their service, every company is going to try offering you something extra. These may include site building tools, search engine submission tools, or a whole host of other things. They're not essential and shouldn't make or break your decision when picking your host company, but could become the tie-breakers between two front runners.

Deal Breakers

At the top of your list should be deal breakers. What can your website absolutely not afford to go without? For instance, if you're planning on having multiple websites on your server, you will need to ensure that you will have the capability to do that with the plan you choose. Keep in mind: Most plans will not have this kind of functionality! And what if you will be selling a product online? You will need to ensure your server will have e-commerce capabilities which may include SSL certificates, or online shopping cart templates. The biggest deal breaker of all though is probably tech support. You shouldn't expect the company to hold your hand and step you through making your first webpage, but if something goes wrong...Pointing your domain name to your new server, setting up your e-mail accounts, etc...Your hosting company should be more than willing to help you out.

This article should be more than adequate in answering your question, "How Do I Choose a Web Hosting Company". And remember, it's always a good practice to look for reviews of companies on the web too, so don't fail to take the 5 minutes to do so!

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