For most web sites, shared hosting provides the most cost effective solution to web hosting. While the basic hosting is just that, each offer many different features and incentives. Before even looking at a hosting service, it is a good idea to thoroughly assess your present and future needs. For example, an ecommerce site will require much more in the way of storage and features than a personal or hobby site. If you will be hosting multiple domains or sub-domains, you need to know if a given company will support them without additional charges. Plans may include basic shopping carts, free domain registrations, multiple scripting options, etc. The list is endless, but the first order of business is to develop some criteria based on what you need right now and what you may require in the future. Its always possible to switch companies in the future, but much easier to get it as right as possible the first time.
In evaluating various companies, there are several aspects generic to all that you should look at.
Is the company established? Look for a company that has been in business at least 3-5 years and has a physical address and phone number posted on their web site. Use caution with a company whose only contact information is an email address. Also look at the number of domains hosted by the company. An established company should be hosting at least 50,000 (if not more) domains.
Is 24/7 monitoring and service available? The company should have someone monitoring their servers at all times as well as someone available to handle emergency service in the event your site goes down.
Is their a money back guarantee? It is common practice for a company to require a year or two payments up front in order to obtain the best pricing. Check to see if the company offers a pro-rated refund if you choose to switch companies.
How much are additional services? Should you exceed your plans allotted bandwidth or storage, it is important to know what additional transfer or storage will cost. Most companies are quite reasonable, however some require that you purchase additional storage / bandwidth in large blocks. Most companies will send you an alert if you are approaching your plans limits and allow for arrangements to be made. Others will simply shut down your web site until you have paid.
Testimonials? They are nice to see, but should always be taken with a grain of salt. Check to see if the testimonials include a web address and visit the web-site.
Is the sales staff available to answer questions? They should be. Look for a toll free number and call with any questions before making a commitment.
The last thing you need do is evaluate the pricing and assure that it fits in your budget. While you certainly don't want to choose an obviously shady hosting company for the sake of saving a few bucks, it has been our experience that more expensive does not necessarily mean better when it comes to shared hosting.
Choosing A Web Hosting
Now that your website is nearing completion you may have already spent some time scouting around on the net for a web hosting service for you to use. One thing that you may have noticed is that there is virtually and uncountable number of them offering their services, all claiming to be the best, which can make a final decision some what difficult.
Add to this the fact that many of these services are coming and going out of business constantly, due the the high level of competition in the web hosting business on the Internet. After much careful research you may be ready to make your final decision based solely on the technical qualifications of a web hosting service such as the amount of bandwidth and gigabytes that that they have to offer you.
Also, there is the price of their services that is always something that must be taken into consideration. Is there other things that can be taken into consideration when deciding on a web hosting service to use? The fact of the matter is that there are a few other factors that you may want to take into consideration before you make your final decision.
The truth of the matter is that due to the high degree of competition between web hosting services many of them offer other services that you may want to consider other then just their technical qualifications. Of course when you have your website created you can be overly optimistic with regards to its projected future level of success. This means that you will want to consider that you will have to engage in some measure of active promotion of your website and you will want your web hosting service to have the tools necessary for you to do this.
SEO is very important to a websites success and if your hosting service has the tools needed for you to effectively promote your websites SEO then this can give you the edge you need to prevail against the competition you will encounter on the Internet. One tool that will come in handy for SEO is a functioning research tool that you can use for researching your competition and also for planning the use of your keywords.
The importance of this tool cannot be underestimated, because it is highly unlikely that your website is going to achieve an appreciable measure of success with out you having engaged in search engine optimization or what is referred to as SEO. Another thing that you will want to make sure of is that the hosing service that you use currently creates site maps and also pings ASK, Google and Yahoo automatically.
If a hosting service doesn't do this, it means that you will have to do it yourself every time you update your website or add a web page which can be very time consuming. Still one more effective aspect of a preferable web hosting service is a tool for inspecting and reviewing web pages that will make suggestions for changes that will result in more positive and effective SEO or search engine optimization.
Both R Heavner & Andrew Scherer are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
R Heavner has sinced written about articles on various topics from High Cholesterol, About Web Hosting and Fitness. For more tips and info on web hosting, visit our website . R Heavner's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.
Andrew Scherer has sinced written about articles on various topics from About Web Hosting, Multi Level Marketing and About Web Hosting. Written by Andrew Scherer. Find the latest information on as well as. Andrew Scherer's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.
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