Choosing a web host seems to be a daunting task at first. For a beginner it would seem that the selection of a web host is more difficult that actually building a website. This is not the case; however there are a few items that need to be considered when choosing a plan. Understand that this guide is for novice webmasters, and that it is assumed advanced hosting requirements such as MySQL or other Windows Web Hosting specific applications will either not be required or already understood. Although we will touch on this information, it will not be covered in-depth.
Here we will look at number of visitors and download requirements, necessary formats, uptime, and the service level agreement.
Obviously more is better, but planning for traffic is important. If the site is very new and little to no marketing is actively driving traffic to a site then obviously it is of little concern. Of course if the site is new and you plan to run an ad during the Super Bowl, then you better be ready to take on some serious traffic. This is an extreme example, but it is relevant. Most young sites will receive no organic traffic until they make it into the search engines and begin to show up for searches. Email campaigns are a way of driving traffic without search engines, but this is known as burst traffic and occurs at regular intervals controlled by the webmaster. It is important to understand how much traffic should be expected and plan accordingly. Bandwidth costs money, so if you dont need it, dont buy it. 50 GB of transfer (downloads and uploads) will usually cost less than $10.00 USD per month so use that as a starting point.
The format of the website in question is important. Although the various scripting languages that can be used are a topic outside the scope of this guide, we will touch on it as some information is needed. Certain software is required to run certain applications. Most notably Widows specific applications will almost never run in Linux based servers. Popular examples of Widows Hosting specific applications are ASP, .NET, and MySQL. Linux has apps that will serve similar purposes so the need for a specific host can be overcome. CGI and PHP are popular examples of Linux based apps.
Most hosting companies will guarantee a certain amount of uptime. For small personal sites this isnt much of an issue, but for business sites that are designed to earn money this is a big deal. Look for more than 99% uptime in a reliable host, and make sure this is in writing (electronic or otherwise). 100% is not reasonable even with appropriate redundancy in a system, so the best host around will offer 99.9% uptime.
A service level agreement should come with any hosting plan offered by a reputable firm. The less expensive the hosting plan is, the less service will come with it as a rule. Often a $10 monthly plan and a $50 monthly plan look almost identical till it comes down to what type of customer service is available. All plans come with some level of service, the least expensive being almost entirely email support. As the price tag goes up phone support becomes available, and at the highest end corporate and co-location support tends to be on-site. Dont shy away from email support. Its 24 hours and almost all issues can be dealt with in this format.
Jon Norwood is founder and managing partner of AccessHosts, a site dedicated to providing information on Windows Hosting as well as guides on how to best choose a service.
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