How to Consider a Web Host?
Now that your website was built. Your next task is to find a web
hosting company that will not cost you more money and time. More
money if the hosting fee is expensive and more time if you
failed in selecting a good web host, you may try to find again
another web host to transfer all your files. How if you have an
active community? You have active visitors using your message
boards, chat, e-commerce software and other stuff on your
website. You stuck on them.
The things you need to find selection of a good web host is to
make sure they have a high-speed connection (T3 or higher) to
the Internet, price is competitive, reliable servers (hardware
ad software), they have plans available for your expansion, high
bandwidth, backup system, quality of support service (how they
handle your complaints and speed of responds), they can give you
email addresses, FTP access or file manager and other features
such as allow scripting (cgi or php or asp) and database (SQL or
MySQL). Sometimes they allow you to use their existing scripts
to your website.
Speed: - Make sure they have high-speed connection (T3 or
higher) to the Internet. Expect your visitor not to come back
again or disconnect their connection of opening your site if
you're website is very slow.
Price: - It must be competitive. Expect to pay $3 to $50 per
month for your 5 pages website. Some web host gives you
discounts if you pay them annually. Most small web sites uses
only 2 to 5 MB web space. Choose a plan based on the size of
your website.
Reliability: - Ask them the server specifications and the uptime
guaranteed. If the computer they use is in the top brand and
model, and 99% guarantee then you are lucky. But no one can give
you 100% guarantee because there are times the earthquake and
other disasters strikes. Ask them the issues involve when
there's disasters and how will they answer it? - Ask them about
the backup system, if they have.
Expansion: - Most of the web hosts have different plans on
expansion. Ask them if you can upgrade your plan later.
Badwidth: - Aware on this one because if they give you low
bandwidth, you're site will not be viewed. It will happen if
your site has traffic. Support: - The quality of support is
based on their speed of response and how they solve their
problems. Most of the web hosts have experienced engineers doing
the maintenance and support. Make sure you can contact them 24/7
by phone or email. Ask them more before you sign up. Features:
These are some of the basic feature of a Web Host: - Domain name
registration - At least 5MB of allocated space - Unlimited
bandwidth - POP3 E-Mail Accounts - Email Forwarding - Email
Auto-responders - Email Aliases - FTP Access - FrontPage Support
- Own CGI-Bin Access - Free Scripts - Scripting
(CGI,ASP,PHP,etc.) - Server Side Includes (SSI) - Secured Socket
Layer (SSL) - Password Protection - Free Technical Support - 30
day money back guarantee - Room for expansion Plan your website
carefully because in the future you may need to add more pages
and add more programs. Less feature less consideration. Types of
Hosting: A. Free Hosting - Most of the Free Hosting Companies
displays thier banner on your web pages - It is only applicable
to small websites - Limited support - Limited web space -
Unreliability of server (hardware and software) - No notice when
they want to Shutdown their server - Sometimes you can't use
your own domain name B. Virtual or Shared Hosting - No Banner
Ads - Low cost - Good for small to medium size websites - With
Support (most are free) - reliable server(s) - Speed may vary
depends on how many sites on server - Sometimes slow updates -
Can use your own domain name C. Dedicated Hosting - No Banner
Ads - High cost - reliable server(s) - Good for large websites -
Full Support (most are free) - Speed may vary depends on how
many sites on server - Can use your own domain name - Can add
more domains. This is good if you have several domains
registered. Now that you know the type of hosting and the some
basic features on a server, you can choose a good web hosting
company to serve you. It will be your partner for your online
success.