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Finding a host suitable for your needs can sometimes be a difficult affair. Though hopefully, with our simple guidelines you should get matched up with your ideal host in no time.
- Cost - It may sound silly but make sure that you can afford the host. Non payment of your hosting fee could mean your hosting account could be closed which in turn means your site would be removed from the internet.
- WebSpace/Bandwidth Allowance - It is fairly easy to pick a hosting package with the webspace allocation you need. Predicting how much bandwidth you need isnt always as easy. Webmasters which are graphic intenstive or have a lot of files for their visitors to download should pay careful attention to their bandwidth allowance. It should be noted that going over your bandwidth will incur addition costs - costs which are usually higher than just moving up to the next available hosting package.
- Environment/Software Specifications - If you require mysql, perl, php or some other package which your site wont function properly without, then make sure that the host has the relevant version of the software installed. If they do not have a newish version.
- Control Panel - Makre sure that the host uses a control panel that you are happy with. Most hosts have a demo for you to see what the hosting panel looks like. At the very least they will inform you of the panel they use so if you are not familiar with it do a search for it in a search engine and find out as much as you can about it.
- Quality of Host - Server Uptime - All hosts go down from time to time which is why hosting companies usually state that they have 99.99% uptime. Make sure though that your host is only down on rare occasions. Customer testimonals are usually either false or placed there in exchange for an advert for the reccomding site - so to be on the safe side, make a post at a large hosting forum like WebHostingTalk and ask for members comments on the hosting site. This applies to all aspects of the host - not just uptime.
- Quality of Host - Customer Support - Support is essential for beginners. More experienced web developers should probably not put as much emphasis on this though obviously good support is still needed.
One thing to remember though - do not judge a book by its cover. Most hosting companies are resellers of a larger hosting company and most of them purchase a template for their site. For example, we at System0 have used several hosts over the last few years - some good, some not so good.
Dot5Hosting have a graphically impressive site. However, their customer support is terrible. Conversely, the site design of InternetHosting4U is quite poor and with incredibly low prices you'd expect the whole hosting service to be bad. Not so, their customer support is by far the best we have ever received and their staff are in constant contact with members to make sure everythings ok.
Bottom line - looks can be deceiving, so dont judge a hosting company by its site design. We cannot stress enough though that before going with a new host, make a post about them on a hosting forum to see if other people have had experience with them. Good luck!
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