The Nitty Gritty of Choosing a Website Hosting Company

April 1, 2010 by Alicia Harper
Filed under Web Hosting Reviews

If you have a website or would like a website you’re going to need a website hosting company. The excellent news is there are tons out there to choose from. The terrible news is you’re going to have to learn a small bit about web hosting to be able to choose the aptly one for you. That is what we are going to discuss in this article, to help you choose the aptly web host for your company/personal website.

What is a web host company?

A web host provides the service that allows you to store the information that makes up your website. A web host stores your website’s information on a web server. Each time you type a web address into your browser , the browser questions for your website’s information from the web hosts server and then the browser displays it on your screen. In the end, if you don’t have a web host or your own server, you don’t have a website. Some ISP’s (Internet Service provider) provides web space but, this is not the type of web hosing we will be discussing.

Types of hosting plans

The next thing you are going to need to know is that there are different types of hosting that is available to you. There is virtual / shared hosting. What that means is that the web host company hosts more than one account on that server. There is also dedicated which in the end means you would get your own server. Another typeÂ (which is not as common as the first two) is VPS (Virtual Confidential Server) and what it is, is ” virtual ” servers on the actual server and the user can add different modules within their server. The user can also allocate how much CPU usage or memory simple module gets. Most users will generally only need shared hosting unless you have a large website with over 5,000 visitors per day and large scripts. If that is the case you will need dedicated hosting.

Types of Operating Systems

There are three different types of operating systems for servers. There is Linux, Unix and of way Windows. Just because your computer is a PC doesn’t mean you have to opt for Windows web hosting. The operating system you use on your desktop has small to do with your scale of web hosts. As long as you know how to use your FTP or web publishing software, your can use either operating system.

When it comes to Web hosting, Linux has for some time, been widely considered the best Operating System for Web servers. It’s typically found to be the most dependable, stable and efficient system. If your website, like most web sites, is what force be termed “brochure-ware” then Linux servers are ideal. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time and very low downtime.

If you intend to make your website using ASP, FrontPage, the .NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of the other Microsoft proprietary technologies then you probably need to use a Windows host. All other languages are able to be hosted on either platforms. In the end, unless you are specifically using features that are unique to one platform or another your time will be much better washed-out looking for a really excellent quality host than a really excellent quality server.

Email

If you have your own site, you would probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like you@yourdomain.com. Does the host grant this with the package? Does it allow you to have a catch-all email account that allows any_e-mail@yourdomain.com to wind up being routed to you? Will you have the option to send auto responders for your e-mail accounts? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software? Can it be automatically forwarded to your contemporary email address? Can you check your e-mail on the web?Â These are questions that you should question when searching for the aptly web host.

Down time

This is extremely vital. A website that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site on the search engine, and clicks on it to find it us unavailable, they will simply shop somewhere else. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors. How do you know if a web host is dependable or quick? The best way to find information about a web hosting company is to search the net. Once you have chose on a web host to check out, typetheir name in Google. As you look through the results, you will see that some of the pages that come up are in fact reviews of that company. Now look at the review websites to see what everyone else is saying about potential web hosting companies. Remember to take reviews with a grain of salt. As reviews can usually be posted by anyone anonymously and you can’t please everyone all the time!

Traffic or Data conveying

Data conveying is the amount of bytes transferred from your website to visitors when they browse your website. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. To give you a rough thought of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new websites are likely use less than 3GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your website becomes larger and more well loved. You will need to check to see if you will automatically be charged for going over your bandwidth regulate or are you probable to pre-pay for it. Personally, with my web host I have 30 GBs of data conveying and I host 7 domains and one sub-domains. I currently only use 750 MBs /month. My websites have a total of 30, 000 visits per month and have about 2 million hits/month.

Price

Unfortunately price is always a factor. You should grasp that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not automatically right that the most pricey hosts are the best. Your best bet would be to go with a web host that is neither cheap nor pricey but, in between.

Technical support

Does the web host company’s technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year around? Make sure you get a response for the web host company promptly not just the next day. Another thing to check is that the phone number they grant in fact is answered by a real person. This I know from personal experience. Make sure it is not an automated system that eventually ends with an answer machine that questions you to leave your name and number. Besides alacrity of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up for a host that is run by kids. Would you?

Alicia Harper owns a Vancouver Web Design Company that specializes is website design and Search Engine Optimization.

Author: Alicia Harper
Article Fund: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

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