Choosing a Web Host
When choosing a web host, keep in mind the old adage "You get what you pay for." If you are serious about building a reputable and successful website then avoid free web hosting like the plague. Allotted bandwidth and storage will almost certainly be severely limited and will also lack many features you take for granted with paid web hosting solutions. Most free web hosting providers require inserting their own advertising on your pages—and if it isn't required, their business model is deeply flawed as they have no means of making a profit and may cease to exist in the near future. Now that I have hopefully convinced you to avoid free web hosting, take the following into consideration before choosing the web hosting for your website:
Speed / Response Time
The speed and response time of your web host is of the utmost importance!
A website that loads slowly will eliminate many potential visitors as
they may hit their browser's back button instead of waiting. Before committing
yourself to a web host you should read reviews on server performance.
WebHostingTalk
is an excellent place to find honest reviews of a particular web host.
You can start your own thread asking for opinions but it is very likely
that a quick search using the web host's name will bring up tons of previous
posts regarding that particular host. If you don't know where to start,
we suggest taking a look at GoDaddy.com
hosting plans
due to their excellent pricing and customer service as mentioned in a
few threads at WebHostingTalk.
Reliability
What's even worse is a web host with a dismal track record for server uptime. Before choosing a web host you must ensure their server has a good uptime record. Many web hosts offer uptime guarantees but any web host can insert a 99.9% uptime guarantee on their website and dilute the implied value of such a guarantee in their fine print. If your website rakes in hundreds of dollars a day it is highly likely the guarantee will not begin to cover your lost revenue if their server goes down for any length of time. Just proving to a web host that they violated their uptime guarantee can be like pulling teeth as well.
Instead of focusing on guarantees offered by a web host, check their server's past uptime record as that is the best method of selecting a reliable web host. Many web hosts display a 3rd party uptime monitor on their website but it can be easy for dishonest web hosts to monitor only select servers or to include short time ranges to keep a high uptime percentage. To get an accurate picture of a web host's reliability, check WebHostingTalk for customer reviews and experiences. You can also sign up for a 3rd party monitoring service such as Pingdom or Hyperspin to evaluate the server's uptime. If you decide to use such a service you need to monitor the server for at least a month to get a true picture of the server's uptime. Again, I can't stress enough that you should not simply pick a web host that slaps a 99.9% uptime guarantee on their website. Past server uptime statistics are extremely important in choosing a web host as the refund offered from an uptime guarantee might be more of a slap in the face due to potential revenue lost during downtime.
Bandwidth
When selecting a web hosting plan it is important not to underestimate your bandwidth requirements. If your website offers high resolution pictures and videos you may eat through bandwidth very quickly depending on how large your audience is. As mentioned previously, you usually get what you pay for and this rings true for the bandwidth available for your website. Web hosts offering unlimited bandwidth should be avoided as they usually come up with other shady methods of limiting how much bandwidth you can actual use or they may hide in the fine print that their "unlimited" bandwidth actually has a set limit and you can actually get charged for using too much of their "unlimited" bandwidth. By choosing a reputable web host their starter plans should offer more than enough bandwidth initially and if more is eventually required they should be able to bump up your plan without difficulty or exorbitant fees.
Other features
Other things to consider when choosing a web host:
- Storage requirements: Stay away from unlimited storage offers for the same reason I mention above about unlimited bandwidth offers
- Control Panels used: DirectAdmin and Cpanel are of the better variety and used by many web hosts
- mySQL, Perl, PHP, SSH, and SSL should be on offer by reputable web hosts
Finding a good web host for your website can be a time consuming process but with the advice above you should be able to find a web host that is a good fit for your website.