Provide A Good Home For Your Website

Selecting a web hosting company is like sending one of your children off to college. You may have complete confidence in your son or daughter's abilities but unless they are placed in the proper environment they will not have the opportunity to thrive. Likewise, no matter how sophisticated or impressive the website you have designed may be, if you do not place the site where it can perform optimally you will likely be disappointed in the results.

Selecting web hosting is not simply finding a place where your website can reside. It is finding the company that offers the resources that will allow your website to operate effectively and to grow as the business or public demands. This means that you must be able to store and transfer enough data so that your site functions smoothly but also remains affordable.

Free web hosting services normally require that you allow ads to be placed on your site. These generate revenue for the hosting company by enabling them to display ads to visitors to your website. Only you can determine if the ads are appropriate for visitors to your site. In addition you will have to decide if the amount of storage and the available bandwidth will be sufficient for the type of website that you want to display. A free service may be completely appropriate for a personal website that is periodically modified. But trying to operate a site with significant traffic or a commercial focus may be "penny wise and pound foolish."

All commercial web hosting companies are not created equal. Of course, cost is an issue but reliability and service will likely be major factors in the decision making process. You should expect your host to be up and functioning 100% of the time but you will likely only see guarantees of 99-99.5% uptime. Less than this is unacceptable.

If you will personally be managing much of the activity for your site, make sure that you are comfortable with the Control Panel. Some hosts present Control Panels that are cumbersome and complicated. You want to easily navigate through routine functions. You will also want to make sure that the hosting company has functionality that you may not be using now but will likely use in the future. These would include PHP, MySQL, SSI, .htaccess, SSL, etc. Examine the offers for email and autoresponders also.

Many web hosting services offer very low rates if you commit to a year or more of hosting. While this may turn out to be an excellent value in the long term, it may be advisable to pay each month until you are confident in the service and, quite importantly, the quality of the technical support that they provide. Getting accurate responses to questions quickly will make your life as a webmaster less stressful.

©Copyright 2004 Online Enterprises

About the author: Terry McDermott is an Internet marketing professional managing a portfolio of websites. He has had adventures with a variety of web hosts and now operates his own hosting website at http://www.alphawebhosting.com. He can be reached at info@alphawebhosting.com

---

How You Pay More for Unused Web Space and Traffic

"2GB web space with 50GB traffic for $5.95 per month!"A... Read More

Which Is The Better Server Operating System, Unix or Windows?

Anybody who decides to get a web hosting service or... Read More

Business Web Hosting: Which is Right for You?

Business web hosting is what you need. You have a... Read More

Setting up Your Personal Server

There are many things to consider when setting up your... Read More

Steps to Becoming a Web Host Reseller

You've decided to get a reseller web hosting account to... Read More

7 Key Ingredients for Rock Solid Website Hosting

Every website needs a great web host, however when you... Read More

How To Host Several Websites Under One Account

If you operate several websites, each with its own domain... Read More

Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better

Anyone who has ever shopped for web hosting knows that... Read More

Web Hosting Service ? What you Need to Know to Change Web Hosting Providers

When service at your web hosting company is lacking, or... Read More

What Is Web Hosting?

The best way to explain this is by comparing it... Read More

Top 6 Ways to Promote Your Web Hosting Business Part 2

Here are the following three methods that can help you... Read More

Web Hosting: Shared or Dedicated - Which Should You Choose?

Before you begin your search for a web host you... Read More

Linux vs. Windows Web Hosting, Does It Make A Difference?

One of the most confusing decisions someone new to web... Read More

How Multiple Server Hosting impacts your websites uptime

This article describes the technology behind multiple server hosting and... Read More

Good Web Hosting ? What Is It?

With hundreds of web hosting companies to choose from today... Read More

EBay Pictures Make Money

If you have ever used EBay then you know how... Read More

10 Helpful Tips to Follow When Switching Web Hosts

You've made your decision to move from your website from... Read More

What to Look for in a Web Host

The first questions you have to ask yourself are: how... Read More

Back To School Web Hosting

Every year as school starts web hosts see an up... Read More

Criteria of Choosing an Ideal Web Hosting Company

Before we talk about what it takes to... Read More

Budget Web Hosting - Are They All Created Equal?

Choosing a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. In... Read More

Hosting Your Way All The Way To The Bank

Let's face it, the Internet is here for good. Today's... Read More

Finding the Right Web Host

Choosing the right Web Hosting service for your website can... Read More

First Web Hosting Experience

Well? you've purchased a domain name? created a pretty design?... Read More

The Top 10 Essential Ingredients of Every Linux Hosting Plan (Package)

Any website comprises the following ? Domain name, Webspace, Webpages.Lets... Read More

Best Website Hosting is One Thats Reliable

If you are looking for a solid, reliable web host,... Read More

Switching Web Host

Moving a web site to a new host is not... Read More

Choosing The Wrong Server Will Literally Make Or Break You

Choosing the right web server will be one of the... Read More

Free Web Hosting - Why Might It Be A Bad Idea

When talking about free anything the legitimate question that first... Read More

How to Get Better Technical Support

Whenever you have a technical question that needs answering, you... Read More

The 2 Sides of Reseller Web Hosting

In the first case the customer is really looking for... Read More

More Profits in Your Website Hosting Business

If you run a website hosting business, you already know... Read More

Internet Domain Registration - Establishing and Transferring Your Domain Name

If you're in business, one of the most important things... Read More