Web Hosting Articles » How to Pick a Good Web Hosting Provider
How to Pick a Good Web Hosting Provider
Everyday more and more people decide that they want to try their hand at putting their thoughts and ideals on the Internet. Usually these people start with a free provider such as wordpress.com or blogger.com. These services allow people to get their feet wet and get a good feel on some of what it takes to operate a web site online. Some people will get bored and eventually move on, others will find that they like the experience but decide that a free web host is not giving them enough freedom to do what they would like. This is the time that most people will start looking for a paid web host provider.
We are going off the assumption that you need a shared hosting provider for right now. There are several different types of web hosting that you can sign up for, the most popular being shared, VPS(virtual private server), and dedicated. When you sign up for shared hosting, you are hosting your web site on a server that you are sharing with other people. This leads to limited resources(usually enough for a beginning web site though) that you can use on that server. The upside to shared hosting is that it is by far usually the cheapest option. With the VPS option, you are still sharing a server, but you have control of a part of the server just like it was all yours. You have what they call root control, which allows you to switch your operating system and make other custom configurations that you would not be able to do on a shared server. The last type is a dedicated server. A dedicated server gives you control of your very own server. There is nobody else is on that server except for you unless you allow them to be. You will have total control of that server. The VPS and the dedicated server option is usually a good choice for fairly advance users and really should not be used by beginners.
Before you pick a hosting provider, it's important that you decide exactly what kind of web site you are going to have. Will you continue to run a blog like system, will you have an e-commerce site or a web application? After you figure out what type of site you are going to run, you must find out the software that you are going to use to help run this site. Different web host have a variety of base configurations that they use on their servers. If you are purchasing a custom ruby on rails based software application it will not help if your server only runs php applications. I know that this a little technical but as a operator of a web site, unless you have the money to pay someone, you will have to learn some of this technical information. It is good to go with a host provider that provides several options when it comes to the programming language that you can run on your server. This way there is a better chance that no matter what software you use, it will be able to run on your server.
Probably more important than the software that you can run is how much disk space and bandwidth does the company give you. Different company's will offer different amount so it would be in your best interest to stay clear for deals that seem to good to be true. When a company offers unlimited bandwidth or unlimited storage, it is time to have your radar up. You should do a little homework on the company by doing a google search to see if they have any serious and numerous complaints against them. You have to keep in mind that every web host will have people complain about them. It is just part of the business. What you should be on the look out for are complaints that come of the scamming customers variety. A host provider that accidentally botches up your back up is one thing, a company that takes your money and runs off is a different thing all together. You may also want to ask the provider how easy is it to let you scale your web site while staying with their service. When it comes for that time that your web site has grown big enough for a dedicated server, do they make it easy to scale up. You want to be sure that there are as few growing pains as possible when choosing a web host.
There are many more questions that are out there when it comes to picking a web hosting provider, many of them deal with custom situations that might be desired. I have given a few pertinent questions that you should get the answers for before you make a commitment to a web host provider. Once you answer these questions you should be very close in being able to choose which host you would like to use.