The Nitty Gritty of choosing a website hosting company

If you have a website or would like a website you're going to need a website hosting company. The good news is there are tons out there to choose from. The bad news is you're going to have to learn a little bit about web hosting to be able to choose the right one for you. That is what we are going to discuss in this article, to help you choose the right 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 asks for your website's information from the web hosts server and then the browser displays it on your screen. Basically, 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 basically means you would get your own server. Another type (which is not as common as the first two) is VPS (Virtual Private 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 easy 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 course 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 little to do with your choice of web hosts. As long as you understand 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 reliable, stable and efficient system. If your website, like most web sites, is what might 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 create 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. Basically, unless you are specifically using features that are unique to one platform or another your time will be much better spent looking for a really good quality host than a really good 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 provide 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 current email address? Can you check your e-mail on the web? These are questions that you should ask when searching for the right web host.

Down time

This is extremely important. 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 reliable or fast? The best way to find information about a web hosting company is to search the net. Once you have decided 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 actually 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 transfer

Data transfer 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 idea 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 popular. You will need to check to see if you will automatically be charged for going over your bandwidth limit or are you expected to pre-pay for it. Personally, with my web host I have 30 GBs of data transfer 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 realize that you often get what you pay for, although it's not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best. Your best bet would be to go with a web host that is neither cheap nor expensive 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 quickly not just the next day. Another thing to check is that the phone number they provide actually 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 asks you to leave your name and number. Besides speed 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?