Web Hosting Checklist
While there are a large number of web hosting providers all over the world, if you are new to web hosting industry, you may be confused about finding a low cost yet reliable one. In this article, I will give you a brief checklist which you must truly consider when you are shopping around.
1. Disk space
2. Bandwidth
3. Domains
4. Programming language
5. Email accounts
6. E-commerce features
7. A good control Panel
8. A good technical support
9. Flexibility
10. Additional service
11. A robust infrastructure
Disk space
The disk space is space used to hold the files that make up your website, including html files, graphics, scripts and multimedia content. Every hosting account has a certain allotment of disk space. When you are looking for a web host, you need to find a provider, who can offer you more disk space so that you will free of worry about overuse. Especially, if your website including things like download files, pictures, music and video, you will require more disk space.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth (also known as data transfer), refers to the total amount of data that downloaded or uploaded from a particular website or web hosting account during a given time (usually a month). A web hosting account is restricted to stay under its monthly bandwidth allotment just like the water traffic limited by the pipe. If you are going to have a lot of visitors or to host large files, video or photo, then you need a high bandwidth plan.
Domain names
What is a domain name? Domain name is the address on the internet. If you are going to start any kind of online business, you need to get a unique domain name (address) so that your website can be reach by people from all over the world. For example, the domain name www.Hostease.com identifies the location where this web site is hosted. Many of you may wonder you need to register a domain with domain register; this is not always the case, many web hosting company offer you free domain name if you hired their web host. This will save you money. Just like, the company hostease offers free domain name for life and multiple sub-domain.
Programming languages
Many newbie may ask question on forum likes “Which is the best programming language? Is it PHP, ASP, CGI or any other? ” There is not really the best language to use. It really depends on what you are trying to do, on what platform. If you are going to using a Linux shared host, then PHP is probably the best. If you are on a windows hosting, then.asp might be a good choice. Personally, Linux web hosting with PHP and MySQL is my favorite.
PHP is short for “Hypertext Pre-processor” and becoming increasing popular for creating dynamic web pages. It can replace Microsoft Active Server Pages (.asp) technology on Linux/Unix server. PHP enjoy great popularity due to the open source root, which means you can use it freely. As a conjunction with PHP, MySQL is well known for its quick processing, proven reliability and ease of use. MySQL is an essential part of almost every open source PHP application. Of course, it would better if the hosting company provides all the scripts, PHP5, CGI, fast CGI, Perl, Python, and SSI for you.
Email accounts
This is another important feature for your online business. You need to check out that your hosting solution includes email accounts for your staff. Email features, such as unlimited email account, POP3 account, web mail, mailing lists, auto responders, catchalls, spam filter, and mail forwarding etc should be support for the ease and security of your business.
E-commerce features
The purpose of hosting your website on the internet is to make business and profits. Except that you will definitely only focus on blogging instead of online business, you need to get a shopping cart for your website so that your customers to order and buy your products. Check out with the web hosting to make sure they offer shopping carts for your current or future business requirements.
A good control Panel
A control panel in web hosting refers to the interface provided by the hosting company for the maintenance and monitoring of the hosted website. You get administrative control over your domains, email accounts, database and web stats among other features. The main purpose of a control panel is to enrich user experience by providing a number of tools that dramatically reduce administrative challenges. One of the most widely used control panels on the market is cPanel, which allows you to control various aspects of your hosting account and even provides details on bandwidth and other statistics.
A good technical support
It is important to make sure that your web hosting company provides you professional customer support. Their responses should be fast and make to the point. There are many web hosting companies that can very quickly identify the problem, but take a lot of time to solve the problem. It is extremely important that you can access to their support via different ways, email, tickets, knowledge-base, phone, forums. If you really want to make profits with whatever online business you have, you should select a web host that has excellent customer care and technical staff that is professionally trained to handle all sorts of problems.
Flexibility
In the initial days, a business may not require a large space and rich feature to support the website, as the business expanding, you may need new applications and service, therefore you need to upgrade your package. You need to find a hosting company who can offer you various hosting plan according to your business requirements.
Additional service
A reputed company will also provide additional service, such as, Security Socket Layer certificates, domain registering, website designing to ensure that the customer can enjoy a one-stop solution.
A robust infrastructure
Last but not least is the up-time issue. Although most web hosting services will offer you at least 99% up time, there are still a few out there offering less than that. Do not settle for a hosting service that cannot offer 99% up time guarantee. Only with high quality services that backed by powerful data center and cooling systems, you will not be interrupt by the performance issues of the server. Try to make sure that the servers are monitored 24/7 to avoid any possible external threats.