Choosing a Web Host that’s Right For You

So you’ve decided to finally shell out some money to get a web host for yourself. Good for you! While free web-hosting might work for some people, it really is an advantage to have total control over your web site minus the annoying ads which you have no control over (they mess up your layout badly). Before choosing a web host, makes sure to consider the following:

Reliability and Speed – A web host ideally should not have any down time. Remember that the internet is operating 24 hours 7 days a week that’s because the web doesn’t shut down when one part of the world is dark. You should look for a MINIMUM uptime of 99%. It would be better if you could get 99.5% or higher based on REAL statistics. The host should provide some form of reimbursement or refund to be credited to your next billing should the uptime fall below the states figure. After all, you could be losing potential sales during that down time period.

Disk Space

One thing to note is that you should have pretty much a good idea of how much space you’re going to need. Most websites would probably take up from 10 megabytes to 50 megabytes of server space. Be wary of web hosts which offer unlimited disk space for a “small” fee. Although it’s nice to have unlimited space if you’re hosting a lot of sites (so you won’t have to worry about space), you rarely would fill it up. Just purchase what you really need and don’t be tempted to upsize your disk space.

Price

Last of course is price. Almost everyone would probably offer you the same price. Web hosting is a cut throat industry and most of them compete on price, not on service. Remember, just because one host is cheaper than the other doesn’t mean that it’s better.
 

Bruno Auger

Tags: reliability, price, speed, web hosting, disk space, web host