How to select a web host for your site

Web Hosting

Once you have your web site finished and you have selected and purchased a great domain name, you need to start thinking about what sort of Hosting Package will best suit your business needs. There are all sorts of things to think about; web space, data transfer, applications (PHP and MySQL), web statistics, mail boxes, the list goes on. But what are all these concepts and how do you work it all out so you can find out if a hosting provider supplies your requirements.

Web Space

This relates to the amount of disk storage space in megabytes (MB) that the hosting provider allocates for your web site / storing your e-mail and web log files on their server.

Data Transfer (Bandwidth)

This is the amount of traffic your web site is allowed to receive per month. Discuss with your hosting provider will your requirements and they should then advise you which package would best suit your needs.

Mail Boxes

A mail box captures and stores all e-mails you receive.  These in turn can be retrieved by traditional clients such as Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird. The hosting provider should provide all details required to setup your mail client.  This is done by attaching your e-mail address to the mail server. Remember, you may require a number of mail boxes, Ie. One for each staff member in your business. 

SSL – secure server access

This facility allows provides the ability to encrypt data between you and your customers, allowing you to accept data securely on your website, like credit card transactions, without fear of someone else getting hold of it.

MySQL

MySQL is a database server that stores information used in the construction or operation of your web site. Not all hosting packages provide this facility. Your wed site designer should provide requirements if this is needed, then check with your chosen provider for details on setup.

Web Statistics

These packages allow you to check how many visitors your website receives, what browsers they are using, the referring website and a whole host of other information. It’s a worth while addition to your website. Some hosting providers offer this feature for free. Check with them for information.

There are lots of other features that come with web hosting packages and this information can usually be found on the provider’s website.

Control Panel

For ease of maintenance, a feature called a Control Panel is a necessity; this tool will normally allow for regular maintenance, be it email mailbox additions/deletions, password resets, web additions, web count reports, statistics and so on. If the site is for any sort of business, this is an absolute must.

 

Customer support

Web site hosting service isn’t just all these technical things. Based on personal experience, even a top-notch service with all the bells and whistles is worthless without customer support. If you own a business website, your hosting provider needs to be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem; otherwise, you may end up losing customers and money.

Availability guarantee and service monitoring

Having a personal website go down is a minor inconvenience; but having a business website go down can be a serious matter – lots customers, potential revenue etc. What amount of profit would you lose if your site had been down for a week? Long downtime may be very harmful to today’s companies which spend large amounts of money on advertising their websites. Essentially, there are two rules regarding reliability that one should look at:

1. You should check if there is an availability guarantee offered. A true customer service focused provider will also give a money-back guarantee, offering a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. Any company which avoids taking responsibility won’t put much effort into the service.

2. I definitely wouldn’t go with a company claiming 100% availability, as there is no such thing as a server with 100% uptime. If anyone ever claims their server has a 100% uptime they are either lying or they don’t perform the necessary upgrades that prevent a machine from being compromised.

Acceptable use policy

Web hosts may have 200-300 or more different clients (and more actual web sites) per server; there is no exact number, as companies have different hardware and each hosted web site has different resource usage. There always is a possibility that a few of those customers host illegal content. There are web hosts who have had their servers unplugged, resulting in all websites going down. I’m sure you don’t want to put your business at risk and have your website hosted on the same server together with illegal material and software sites, so check host’s acceptable use policy to find out, if the host takes care of what’s hosted on their servers.

Hosting your site on an uncared-for server will also result in a low speed. If somebody on the same server sends spam, the server’s IP address will be blacklisted and you’ll have serious problems as recipients stop receiving your emails. Use the “Spam database lookup” feature on www.DNSstuff.com to check if a web hosting company is blacklisted. Spam is being sent almost everywhere, so having one or two red records isn’t that bad; but, if there are more, it may become a problem later on.

 

Differences between Free or Paid Hosting Providers

Some hosting providers offer free hosting packages but there are usually terms and conditions attached to them. They could include the following:

Free

1. The URL or website address could show signs of free hosting like www.freewebhosting.myhost.co.uk. These sorts of URL’s are not very professional and you loose your company image and identity.

2. Web space and Data transfer are both usually low. Your website could be taken offline until the following month if bandwidth is exceeded or you could be charged for any bandwidth used over your allowance. Always read the terms and conditions.

3. Hosting providers offering free packages usually place banner or pop up advertising on your website. This can be very confusing and annoying you and your customers and drive them away from your site.

4. Advanced features such as PHP, MySQL databases, sub domains, SSL secure server access are usually not available when using free website hosting.

Paid

1. You can use your own domain name (URL) with the hosting package. You can also usually purchase them direct from the provider.

2. You can usually get 24/7 support, see my comments below.

3. Server availability or uptime is the amount of time the web hosting servers are online. Sometimes maintenance work can mean their servers are offline for a short while.  See my comments below.

4. You can choose a package that supplies the correct amount of web space and data transfer.

5. Lots of advanced features are usually offers. Check with the provider.

6. A control panel is usually offered so that you are in control of managing your hosting package.

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