In the world today, there are tens of thousands of web hosting companies all desperate for business. There are also hundreds of thousands of different types of hosting packages for you to choose from. As a result, selecting the right web host and hosting package for your website can be a challenging task. Fortunately, this article contains some information that will hopefully make the task easier.
Disk Space
HTML files and scripts typically take up very little space, however, if you want to host videos, music and image files on your website, you are going to need a hosting plan that comes with a lot of disk space. Fortunately, most web hosting companies will allow you to increase your disk space allocation as your website grows, so you will not have to pay for a large amount of disk space when your website is in its infancy.
Bandwidth
If you are hosting videos on your website, it would probably be best to select a hosting plan that has an unlimited monthly bandwidth allowance. Unfortunately, these types of hosting plans can be very expensive, so you may want to investigate to possibility of hosting your website’s videos with a separate free specialist video host such as YouTube.
Linux or Windows
Windows web servers are always more expensive than Linux (apache) servers. However, if your website requires ODBC, Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL databases, and ASP.NET, you will have no choice but to use a Windows server.
Customer Support
Make sure that any web host that you choose provides 24/7 online technical and billing support. You may also want to check that the web hosting company can communicate with you effectively in your native language.
Guarantees and Free Trials
Seek out web hosts that offer free trials and money-back guarantees. By taking advantage of a free trial, you can find out first hand whether a web host is suitable for your website before you part with any of your hard-earned cash. When you decide to buy a hosting plan from company, knowing that you can request a full refund at anytime if you are not happy with the service you are receiving can stop you from worrying about your purchase.
Security
Find out where the web hosting company’s data centers are located and ask whether the centers are monitored round-the-clock by trained security guards. If you plan on storing confidently files on your web host’s servers, it is imperative that you make sure that the hosting company is taking their security seriously.
Reliability
You should always check out a web hosting company’s uptime rate and see what sorts of “uptime guarantees” they are offering before you sign up for a hosting plan. Keep in mind, though, that while 98% uptime my sound good, it equates to almost 15 hours of downtime each month.
Using the information presented to you in this article, in addition to other free web hosting advice resources available on the World Wide Web, you should have no problem finding a web host and web hosting package that will serve you and your website well. Good luck!