How to choose a web hosting service

indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task, especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. There are three major criteria for web host seekers:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important to start finding a host for your site factor. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) server platform and hardware requirements

If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Similarly, if you plan to use programming languages ​​such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix platform / Linux should be sufficient to meet your needs Hosting. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your needs. For more information, please read "How to select a web server and server platform?"

b) disk space and bandwidth required

Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before choosing a web hosting plan, ie disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), the disk space requirement may not be a big concern for you. In general, a disk space of 200 MB with 500 MB should be enough to meet your hosting needs. However, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, MP3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB 1000 MB

Similarly, the requirement of bandwidth depends on your estimation of site traffic. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly allowance very fast bandwidth. If this is the case, you will need to find a web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the disk space and monthly bandwidth allocation.

c) Other accommodation options

While the above requirements are of utmost importance, there are other accommodation options you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your site, if you have? Compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool web hosting service? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? The host can support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? In addition, you can also see the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistics software (analyze web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your account with web hosting), database and scripting languages ​​supported, etc.

Reliability and scalability

A web hosting provider offers first-class reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You only need to choose a web hosting service that guarantee availability of servers at least 99% with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or more instead of T1 or T3 lines . A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, speed multiple backbones providers with high fail-over redundancy, backup generators and protection software firewall set in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or more MySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer Service and Support

The last important factor in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always look for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded highly experienced technicians, so that any problems will be solved host in a reasonable time. You can also consider testing the reactivity is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than a day to answer.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free telephone support, email support 24/7 live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ .

Above are some important considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long the web hosting provider in business and the number of clients they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their accommodation and the stability of the company products. Although the cost of web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major concern. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, therefore, the price of most web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than $ 10 U.S. per month. If you can not pay less than $ 10 a month, you probably is not in the online business for the long term. Therefore, the price should not be a major factor.

On the other hand, it is important to ensure the web hosting service you choose is able to meet your web hosting needs, to ensure that your website is always accessible at a satisfactory rate, providing scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting needs, you can take advantage of our site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck in your search.