Tuesday, April 7, 2009

How To Choose An Online Hosting Company

By Brian Reese

No website can work effectively unless it is hosted on a suitable server that publishes it online. To do this you will need to work with a web hosting company of some sort who will give your website a home and make sure that people can find it when they are surfing and that they can access it when they need to.

Choosing a web hosting service is not always an easy job. Although many of the services on offer here will be available with the majority of hosting companies there are so many companies touting for your business in this sector that finding the right one can be a little like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So, what should you look for in a web hosting provider? Firstly, don't think about cost at this stage. The cheapest options that you are offered for web hosting are not normally the best ones, especially if you have a business website to publish. Cost is something to think about later when you've considered all your options.

First of all you need to think about what you actually need from a hosting company. Do you, for example, need them to get you a domain name (the URL of your site) or do you already have one? Do you want additional services and features such as email addresses, website management, statistical analysis tools and so on? Are you happy sharing server space with other sites or do you want a server of your own?

You also need to make sure that the hosting company that you work with can firstly host your site adequately. Do they have enough server space for your current site and can they allow your site to grow with no problems? You also need to make sure that they can then handle your projected traffic/visitors to the site.

No web hosting company is of any use to you unless they can keep your site online and available to web surfers. Most hosting companies will tell you their 'uptime' percentage. This is the percentage of time that their servers kept their hosted sites available on the web. So, for example, if a company has 97% uptime then their sites were unavailable for viewing 3% of the time.

You cannot, however, simply take the word of the hosting company on this. Ask for proof and ask if you can talk to companies/individuals who already use the service. This will give you a far clearer idea of whether this is a service that is potentially worth signing up for or not.

It is also important to assess what kind of customer support you can expect from a web hosting company. Most will offer 24 hour support nowadays which can be useful, especially if your site has a global audience who may be looking at it/using it outside your standard working hours.

Finally, once you have assessed a few providers and their services you can start to compare costs. Most web hosting companies will offer package costs that rise according to the services you need, the size of your site and the server space it takes up. Do try and build in room for growth here as, hopefully, your site will go from strength to strength once it is published online. - 22787

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