Web Hosting Guide - Part 1

Choosing the right website hosting company for your website is very important. You need to evaluate your needs and make a choice between a lot of available companies. From free website hosting to others charging dozens of dollars per months, here are some points you will have to consider.

How to choose a website hosting company?

Advertising
Some web hosting providers are advertising (banners, pop-ups etc...) on the websites of their customers. It's better to make sure you won't get ads on your website since it is not appreciated by visitors and does not make your web site look professional.

Operating System
Between Windows and Linux operating systems, Linux os based webhosting companies are cheaper.

Web Space
Usually a few mega bytes of webspace is enough for most of the business websites. Now, If you intend to use lots of graphics, maybe store ebooks and/or software, it will probably have to require much more. Make sure to understand how your space will be used : are mails, log files, archives counted in the web space provided? As a recommendation, I would suggest to consider web host plans with a minimum of 10 MB.

Recommended Web Hosting Services

Scripting language
If you intend to write yourself some programs and execute them on the web server, you will have to choose a web host with a scripting programming language installed. That could be PHP, SSI, CGI, Perl and others...

Support
Depending of the importance of your website, you will have to make sure the support of web host if efficient. Obviously prices then differes : a 24-hour support service is much expensive than a business hour/a few days a week support service. How do you know if they are efficient ? Well, what don't you call them to ask a few questions ?! You'll find out about their availability and much more...

Bandwidth
The bandwidth is expressed in GigaBytes and corresponds to the amount of data that can be transfered within a month. Basically, every display of a web page, transfer of emails or ftp will result in consuming your bandwidth quota. Depending on your website type and traffic, you might consider from 1 GB bandwidth up to 20 GB...

SSL
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol established to transmit data over the Internet in a private and secure way. Definitively, you will have to use SSL if you are planing to sell items through credit card payment on your website.

Database access
Are you planning on using a small database on your website ? Some web host will provide access to MySQL or postgreSQL database in their package offer. Having a easy database management system is really important : phpMyAdmin is great for that and is probably the most used database administration interface.

Next... Website Hosting Solution - Part 2