Finding a website hosting company can be tricky.
What do you look for, where do you start?
Services
Seems like more and more webhosts offer similar if not identical services. So how do you choose? Know what need! Do some research. Will you be needing a lot of bandwidth? A lot of space? No one wants to set up a nice website and then see a message that they've used up their bandwidth for the month in a week. Know what you need.
Customer Support
Probably THE most important quality in a webhost. Does the webhost have a Toll Free (1800) phone number? Can you call it 24/7. If not do they have a 24/7 email support system. How long does it take to get your questions answered? Is there a forum? In general if you can not get a response to your question within 45 minutes via email or phone the web host is not worth your money - find another!
Connection to the Internet
Contrary to popular belief one host's T3 is not equal to another host's T3. Try using ping (an tool available from many websites) and compare the results, ping some sites on the webhost and the webhost with the lowest ping is probably your best bet. Generally the faster the connection the more users the webhost can support conccurently and transfer much more information at a higher rate of speed before getting bogged down.
Processor/Server Speed
Processor speed and server information can slow down your site no matter the bandwidth that your host has. If you want to stream video and audio, host discussion forums and message boards, online surveys, and high-level animation or have processes that access a database you'll need some nice hardware to make your site load as fast as possible. Slow processors or processors shared by many users can really slow your site down.
Operating System
Do you want UNIX hosting? Windows Server hosting? What's the difference? For one certain application can only run on one system and not the other. ASP and ColdFusion for example will only run on Windows. PHP/MySQL programs are common for Unix. Security and up-time (how long your site can stay online without the server needed a reboot) with operating system also varies.
Security
Protecting your site from hackers requires a lot of work. Make sure your host is up to it. Protection from denial of service attacks and the various hacks and cracks that will be attempted on your server is essential. The hosting company should not only have MULTIPLE back-ups of your data but also have measures to prevent abuse and maintain/update current software on the server.
Reliability
Most hosts offer a 99.5% + uptime guarantee, but that is really not all that much! A 99.5% guarantee means that your server can be down for as much as 3.6 hours a month! Plus webhosts usually don't count maintanance time as down time! But with the right software/hardware downtime won't be a problem. Look for web hosts that have redundant internet connections - from multiple ISPs, a web host should allow you burstable bandwidth - meaning your site will still be up during unusually high peaks, and should you require it a webhosting company should really be able to add extra hardware to your server within hours not days.
|