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WEB
HOSTING
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.
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