So your new web site is finished and ready to be hosted, now it is time to choose web hosting provider. How do you find a reliable web host that is also affordable for your new web site? Below are some of the pitfalls to look out for when choosing your next web host.
Downtime Problems occur, it is inevitable that there will be some downtime caused by server maintenance alone, a reliable web host will not only maintain your server will but also find problems with your server and fix them quickly, a web host that is not as reliable and one you will want to avoid is a host that has poor downtime, downtimes measured in days are unacceptable.
Poor Support Reliable web hosts will answer support questions timely fashion (within hours) and appropriately, the last thing a customer wants to hear from support when there is a problem with their hosting is “that there is no problem”. If support takes days to answer support questions, they are definitely not worthy of your business and you should consider another web hosting provider.
Broken Features If your site relies on a feature such as mail to perform daily duties and it is down, it can cost your business a loss in revenue or a loss in time, problems with databases is another feature to be aware of, reliability of databases is paramount in this day and age for any business.
Billing Issues Be careful of hosting providers with billing problems, things to look out for when evaluating a web host are reports of overcharging, hosts not honouring money back guarantees, and hosts not cancelling automatic billing after you have cancelled your hosting account.
How to Research Web Hosting Providers Finding web hosting providers is all too easy these days, enter in “web hosting” into your favourite search engine and you will given a list of millions of web hosts, but after you have trimmed down your list to the features you rquire and the price, how do you find which web hosts are reliable?
Read the Web Hosts forum What is the general feeling of the forum, are customer’s questions answered satisfactorily? Don’t be overly concerned if all you see is problems, generally the only people who post on forums provided by web hosts are the people who have problems, the customer’s that don’t have problems for the most part don’t post at all. The main thing we are looking for here is how quickly a customer’s problem was resolved.
Read Reviews of Web Hosts Look at how web hosts are rated against other web hosts on review sites, if you see a trend across review sites saying a particlar host is better than another, there is a good chance that this is the case.
Company Backgorund Check the “About Us” or “Company History” page at the web site, look for how long the host has been in business, a host that has been in operation for more than a few years is a good indicator that the host will be around for a long time to come.
Servers Where are the companies servers housed, do they run their own in house hosting, or is it housed elsewhere where it is being run by a 3rd party? What are the uptime statistics, a good web host should publish a link to an uptime monitor, or should give you a link to one if asked.
Send Pre-Sales Questions The answers to your pre-sales questions can tell you a lot about a prospective host, firstly you will see how long the company takes to reply, and once you recieve the reply, how well they commuinicate. You should ask questions related to the points above and also ask questions that relate to your specific needs.
I just went through the process of choosing a web hosting provider. Or should I say Blog Hosting provider. I have been with Godaddy for years and was a happy customer. Then I started blogging using a Word Press blog. Things weren’t going smoothly with Godaddy. At times my blog pages were coming up blank and the load time was very slow. Then when I introduced Firepow to automate my blogging business it got even more complicated. As Firepow is optimized for Hostgator.
I quickly learned about cpanel hosting interface vs. Godaddy’s proprietary interface. The standard is cpanel which is an interface that one can learn to navigate fairly quickly. Plus, most training you will find online provides cpanel instruction. An easy to use hosting control panel is very important when you are creating blogs and websites. Hostgator, also provides the fantastico hosting interface which I haven’t tried yet.
Then there is sql database creation. Godaddy takes a different approach. One cannot just simply point to “localhost” for the location of the database with Godaddy. You need to jump through hoops to find the location. Hostgator provided excellent support and imported my sql database which was a great help in moving my blogs to their system.
It would require a rather long article to provide all the details of the differences between the 2 services. Plus, folks would need to familiarize themselves with terms like: cpanel hosting, web hosts,blog,email hosting, shared hosting, reseller hosting, domain hosting, dedicated servers, dedicated hosting,ftp hosting,domain name hosting,hosting php,ecommerce hosting etc.I would suggest familiarizing yourself with these terms to gain a better understanding of the web and blog hosting environments.
The quick and dirty based on my experience is that Godaddy is great for domain name registration and Hostgator is great for a reliable hosting company. Hostgator has hosting plans from $4.95 per month. It really is not as problem to domain host with one company and use a different company’s hosting server. Just simply point the DS nameservers to the location that your blog or website is hosted at. The hosting provider will provide you with detailed instructions as to how this works.
If you visit the site you will find a 20 percent off coupon among other deals. There are links to domain registration and web hosting plans. It is a great place to start for hosting services and will provided you cheap webhosting. Additionally, if you use Hostgator as your hosting service, I would pay for at least a year in advance which provides even more savings. Hostgator really is a great blog webhost. Additionally if you want to automate your blogging business stop over at and read the article on Firepow.
Contact me for a $30.00 savings.
Anyone that wants to be seen on the Internet needs to have a website. There are literally thousands of web hosts to choose from so finding the right web hosting packages can be a confusing process, especially if you are new to web hosting. This series of articles will assist you in sorting out all the information available and give you the confidence to make the best decision about choosing reliable web hosting. You will find that web hosting packages can vary in pricing as well as the features they offer
such as the amount of disk space and bandwidth available, data transfers, number of domains and email boxes, privacy and security settings, website design and marketing tools, technical support and guaranteed uptime. Knowing what your requirements are is essential to making a smart choice.
Let’s look at the features that are essential to reliable web hosting:
1.DISK SPACE / STORAGE A web hosting account has an allotment of disk/storage space that you rent on a server. The amount of storage will include all of the content of your web pages, any graphic or audiovisual content you may use on those pages, any files that are available for visitors to download and any space that you may use for emails. You will also need to allow space for the various log files that are enerated by the server that keeps track of visitors to your site and what pages they click on. You may want to choose a package with additional disk space so as you add more content such as pictures, music, videos or downloadable files that require more disk space, there are no additional costs. Databases are usually calculated separately from your disk/storage space allocated, so check with your web host to see what their policy covers.
2.DATA TRANSFER / BANDWIDTH These two functions are an important factor when choosing reliable web hosting. They are similar but different aspects of the same process that work hand in hand.
Data transfer is how much data is being transferred on a monthly basis. Your website may not be accessible the less data transfer that is allocated on a monthly basis. Going over your allocated limit can result in a fee or even a temporary shutdown of your website. Be sure to choose a plan with more data transfer than your current needs to allow for additional traffic and content.
Bandwidth is how much data can be transferred at one time. The less bandwidth you are allocated, the slower your website takes to load regardless of the speed of the visitors connection. Higher bandwidth is expensive because it ties up the servers resources and can affect the performance of other customer sites on the server. An important factor to consider when choosing a web host is the fact that they can terminate your Domain name and close the account without refund.
3.DOMAIN NAME The Domain name is your unique name and address on the Worldwide Web. Domain registration is the process that an individual or a company secures a website domain, such as www.yoursite.com. Once you have completed domain registration, the domain name becomes yours for a specified period of time, usually one year. You must renew you domain name before your registration expires, or the domain reverts back to being available to the general public. Be sure
that you own your domain name. Some web hosts maintain control of the domains they register so its important that you retain the option to transfer the domain to another registrar. You should read the “Terms and Conditions” regarding maintaining your privacy and any additional fees to transfer to your domain to another registrar.
4.DEDICATED VS. SHARED IP ADDRESS An Internet Protocol address, or better known as an IP address, is the numerical address of the website that tells other computers where to find the server host and your domain on the Internet.
There are advantages to having a dedicated IP address vs. a shared IP address which is explained in the next section.
Dedicated IP Address means that your site is the only one on the Internet using that IP address number. The advantages of having a dedicated IP address are that you can get your site better SEO (search engine optimization) ratings which make your website more visible and easier to find; there are better security and privacy options. A Private SSL Certificate was created to confirm the identity of a website or server and ensure secure transactions between web servers and browsers. In order to keep clients information secure, a Private SSL Certificate is required for ECommerce websites that accept online credit card payments.
Shared IP Address means there could be hundreds of websites sharing one server that share a single IP address. Shared IP addresses make it easier for hosting companies to manage and maintain their servers and offer this feature at a lower cost. The downside to this feature is if other websites sharing your IP address are banned or blacklisted due to spamming or scamming, their actions directly affect your website. Your website could disappear from the search engines and your email could be blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISP). A Shared SSL Certificate gives you the benefits of a SSL Certificate at a lower cost and still provides a secure URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Many Ecommerce websites provide Shared SSL to their business clients.
5.EMAIL FEATURES Email hosting offers a variety of features for both individuals and businesses. Some of the features offered are customized email addresses, import/export your address book, unlimited storage, webmail accessible from your mobile phone or PDA, calendar alerts, mail forwarding, auto responders, email filters that protect you from viruses and spam, phone and email tech support.
6.GUARANTEED UPTIME This is one of the most important features of a reliable web hosting provider. Guaranteed uptime means your website is guaranteed to be up at least 99.9% of the time and available to visitors. When your website is unavailable, traffic and potential clients will be drawn to your competitors sites and ultimately lost sales. This guarantee should include network uptime, server uptime, web server and service uptime as well as 24/7 support.
7.CONTROL PANEL FEATURES The most important job that a website owner has is creating and management of the website(s) and its content. The C-Panel features the tools for uploading and managing web pages, managing domains, subdomains, FTP accounts, creating parked domains, add-on domains, protecting your directories, redirecting visitors to another location, website statistics, back up data, virus protection and spam filters, the tools to keep your privacy and security.
8.PRIVACY & SECURITY The security of your communications such as unauthorized or sensitive data are a huge concern. Some of the security tools that a web host may include are SSL secure servers, SSL certificates, high quality software that can prevent other websites from directly accessing your databases and files, anti-virus protection, reliable authentication, secure payment processing, firewall protection, use of strong passwords, email encryption and strict privacy policies.
9.TECH SUPPORT A reliable web hosting provider should have technical support available 24/7. Get a quick reply to your support ticket should any issues arise and getting instant support via a live chat service or telephone support.
10.WEBSITE BUILDING TOOLS Even if you have no prior knowledge or experience, Website building tools are often offered as part of a web hosting package. The more advanced website building tools teach you how to add a photo album, guestbook, ads, newsletters, blogs, FAQ module, visitor tracker, banner rotator, auto installer software for blogs, forums, galleries and much more.
For more information about web hosting services, plan options as well as a Free Membership for access to a huge selection of free products, software and marketing tools worth thousands of dollars. So make your web presence stand out, no matter what your experience level. Don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, visit .
With most hosting providers, tech support comes as a standard as part of the hosting package; however, the standard and quality of the tech support provider is often what defines a good or bad web host. For many business owners, they leave the technical side of the website up to the web designer. They therefore don’t necessarily understand why having reliable tech support is so important. If, however, you are a smaller business, you may have had the need to call the support desk in which case you will know how valuable it is to have a helpful and friendly voice on the other end of the line.
Day and Night Accessibility
Your web host should have a support desk that is accessible 24/7. You should be able to reach them by email or telephone at any time of day or night. Many people may ask why the 24 hour accessibility is important. Your website is accessible around the globe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If clients browsing the web try to log onto your website and it’s down, they may think you are no longer in business or they may simply get frustrated when they can’t access web pages. That just creates a bad impression of your company. Customer expectations are so high these days with technology making websites ever more efficient that if a website is not working properly, they usually just go onto the next company. If there is a problem with your website, no matter how small, you need to be able to fix it right away. Usually, you need to be able to contact the web host to find out if it is a server problem or a problem just with your website. This is why it is important for them to be accessible 24/7.
Technical Expertise
Even for many web designers, there are times when they need to consult the expertise of web hosting providers. Your web host service provider can glance at the server on which your site is hosted and troubleshoot to see if there are any problems. This can save you and your web designer many hours of hassle trying to find the problem on your website. A good web hosting provider will also have advanced technical expertise. They can give you advice when needed and help you find solutions to any hassles you are experiencing with your website. This expertise can prove to be very valuable when you are trying to decide what hosting package best suits your needs and if you need to upgrade your website at any stage.
Website Maintenance
For most types of hosting packages, your web host service provider is responsible for maintaining the server on which your website is hosted. This means that they check and make sure that all the operating systems of the server are functional. This is important to your website because, without proper maintenance, the website can slow down and become problematic. Part of the maintenance is to ensure that the anti-virus protection is current and active. This is particularly important if you have a shared hosting package. A virus that gets into one website can infiltrate other websites on the shared server if the server is not properly maintained. If you suspect that you may have a virus or spyware on your website, you can contact the web host support desk and ask them to run some diagnostics. Their superior knowledge and systems should be able to help you pinpoint the problem.
In web hosting terms, traffic is singularly defined as bandwidth. Bandwidth, by definition is the amount of data that flows between your web server and its users. It is measured as the total amount of data coming in or going out of your website. Therefore, considering the bandwidth offered is a crucial concern.
Every time someone accesses any page on your site, the visitor effectively downloads all the images and files that are contained on the page, thus consuming bandwidth. An image, for example, is a larger file than a text file so visitors accessing an “image heavy” site will consume the bandwidth quickly. If your website is text based, the bandwidth consumed is less. A complicating factor is that an attractive site carrying a lot of graphics may attract a greater number of hits than a text based site. Therefore, you must not only take into account the number of visitors to your site, but also the actual content on your website when considering bandwidth. This could approximately be calculated as the number of hits your website receives multiplied by the size of the pages on your website.
We hosting companies generally limit the bandwidth on a monthly basis and charge separately for the amount of bandwidth consumed in addition to the set amount. Although there are some plans that have unlimited bandwidth options, they are expensive.
For small and medium sized websites, the bandwidth offered by the most popular plans would be more than enough. A website needs excellent promotion for the first six months or so, depending on the domain, before bandwidth crops up as a contentious issue.
In considering bandwidth, you need to be realistic about the amount of traffic you expect to receive and the potential for growth. In choosing a web hosting provider, you should consider ones that offer a number of plans with different bandwidth sizes so there is the ability to upgrade easily without moving to a completely new web hosting company.