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How to Select a Web Host |
Many site owners often experience the same problem time and again: they need to find a quality web-hosting provider, but find themselves completely overwhelmed when it is time to choose one from the literally thousands of possibilities. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t despair! There are a number of steps you can take to help find the best hosting provider for your needs.
In this article, we provide you with twelve tips that can assist you in finding a reliable web hosting provider that can suit your needs both now and in the future. Although it's perhaps impossible to have an exhaustive method of evaluating hosting providers, our list of tips and suggestions will give you an excellent start!
Tip #1: Start with only the best
Independent sites (such as NobleHosts.com) provide links to only the quality and reliable providers in the industry. You can check our Listing Policy that we enforce that helps us achieve that in order to bring the end user (you) good reputable companies to choose from. This will hopefully make your search invariably easy, because right from the beginning, you can be assured you will select only a quality hosting provider.
Tip #2: Know precisely what you need, up-front
Having a complete and detailed list of the features you need in a web hosting package is one of the most important aspects of choosing the right hosting provider. Some of the most important questions to ask yourself or your web designer are as follows:
- How much server disk space do I need?
- How much traffic do I expect to get each month?
- How complex is my website? Do I need access to databases, CGI scripts, scripting languages, and so on, or do I simply need a place to store static web pages?
- Will my site be dealing with confidential information? Do I need support for common security protocols, such as SSL?
- What operating system environment would be best, considering the development tools and scripting languages I have used?
- Are my needs such that a shared hosting plan would be best, or would a dedicated or managed solution better suit my needs?
If you are able to answer these questions, you are certainly well on your way to choosing an appropriate hosting provider.
Tip #3: Keep in mind future requirements and remember that flexibility is a virtue
It is almost inevitable: nearly any successful website will eventually outgrow its initial hosting package. Because of this, it is of the upmost importance to find a hosting provider that will be able to provide you with additional features, such as more server space and a greater bandwidth allotment, as your site grows and prospers. Here are a few aspects to consider when assessing a hosting provider’s flexibility:
- Is there any fee to upgrade to a more feature-rich hosting package?
- If I stay with my initial package, are the fees reasonable if I exceed my allotted server space or allotted transfer? What if I need additional ‘special’ features, such as more POP3 mailboxes, additional databases, etc.?
- Would my hosting provider make it easy to switch to a completely different type of hosting (e.g. from shared to dedicated), should such be required?
Having a flexible hosting package in the beginning can definitely save time, money and resources in the future, when your site grows.
Tip #4: Do your homework
It always pays to look into the reputation of a hosting provider before you commit to doing business with them. There are a variety of ways in which you can gain greater confidence about specific hosting providers. Here are a few suggestions:
- Check the reputation of potential hosting providers on websites frequented by those who utilize hosting services. For example, web hosting forums such as WebHostingTalk.com or general discussion forum indexes such as Google Groups are excellent, since they often allow you to find out exactly what others have to say about specific providers. Other possibilities include doing a quick overview search on a popular search engine, such as Google, or looking at general consumer opinion sites such as eOpinions.com. The first stop, though, should be the search on the BBB.org (Better Business Bureau) that processes relationship conflicts between organizations and clients. Look if the company’s profile is satisfactory or if it has consumer complains from their (ex)customers. If they do – see if they’ve been resolved, which is often a good sign.
- Have a look at a potential hosting provider’s WHOIS record. Pay specific attention to how long they’ve been in business, who is listed as contacts for the domain, and check to see if the record gives any indication as to who their uplink provider is. One such good source could be found at: http://www.gatepost.com/domainwhitepages.php
- Consider asking hosting providers for a list of past clients who are willing to vouch for their reputation. You may also wish to consider verifying customer testimonials.
- Find out if your hosting provider is a hosting reseller, and if so, verify the integrity of those who are actually providing the hosting service.
As Henry Ford once said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” If you find out what your prospective hosting providers have done, both good and bad, your selection is clearly that much easier!
Tip #5: Look for efficient and courteous service
As is the case with any product or service, it may be necessary for you to utilize your hosting provider’s customer support facilities from time to time. Although it’s a given that you ought to expect efficient and courteous service, following are a few other notable points to remember:
- Hosting Providers offer a diverse range of support options, ranging from e-mail ticket-based support to 24-hour 1-800 number call centers. Be sure to choose a hosting provider that gives you at least the level of support you expect.
- Watch for hidden charges. Many hosting providers bill significant amounts of money for each and every “support call,” be it by e-mail, instant messenger or telephone. Thus, verify with the potential host if their customer support is free and unlimited.
- Don’t be impressed by fancy automated telephone systems or rapid e-mail autoresponders; neither indicates how efficient and effective a hosting provider’s customer service is.
- How well a hosting provider directly responds to your questions is typically suggestive of the level of customer service you can expect as one of their clients.
Tip #6: Guarantees are good
Whenever you purchase a product or service, it is often beneficial to have a warranty or guarantee, should something go awry. The same holds true when it comes to web hosting. A good web-hosting guarantee should include at least the following elements:
- A (time-limited) money-back guarantee that allows you to receive a full refund if you’re unhappy with your hosting provider’s service following initial sign-up. (Note: Setup fees are often not included in such guarantees.)
- An acceptable refund provision in the event of server outages, perhaps tied to a solid network up-time guarantee.
Guarantees protect you while also helping your hosting provider build and protect their reputation. Therefore, guarantees are good, for both you and your prospective host!
Tip #7: Understand allotted transfer
Perhaps one of the least understood aspects to consider when assessing web hosting providers is the definition of allotted transfer, and some of the common claims surrounding it. Here are a few things to consider:
- One ought to shy away from ‘Unlimited Transfer’ or ‘Uncapped Transfer’ policies, for two main reasons. First, such policies are technically impossible to guarantee because a hosting provider is fundamentally limited by the bandwidth they receive from their upstream provider and by the constraints of their hardware budget. Second, even if a site doesn’t receive much traffic, it’s possible that others using the same hosting provider will. This could possibly lead to deterioration in the quality of service everyone receives.
- Be reasonable and comprehensive in your assessments of transfer requirements. When assessing your needs, remember to include all image and html files, in addition to data displayed as a result of scripting (i.e. database-linked pages, search results, etc.)
- Although not always a major concern, consider that there is always at least a small amount of upstream traffic (i.e. from the browser to your web server) that will be counted as part of the allotted transfer total.
- Flash, Shockwave, streaming audio/video, downloadable files and other bandwidth-intensive features of your web site can extraordinarily increase your allotted transfer requirements. Make ample consideration for these features if necessary.
Tip #8: The best things in life... usually aren’t free
Although a low price web-host may appear to be a good choice, one should always exercise caution. The old adage that you ‘get what you pay for’ is almost always true when it comes to hosting providers. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:
- Be critical when it comes to assessing the claims a potential provider makes. Do their claims seem reasonable? Or are they offering far too much at too low of a price, making it impossible for them to support their clients in the long-term?
- Watch out for hidden costs. Many hosting providers offer ‘free hosting services,’ but compensate by charging large amounts of money for other services such as domain registration, exceeding allotted space or transfer, or making support calls.
- Beware of banner ads and pop-ups. There are many ‘free’ hosting providers who appear to offer great services at either little or no cost. They remain profitable by loading their client’s web sites with annoying banner ads and pop-ups, (which usually have nothing at all to do with the products, services or content offered on the web site).
- Protect your domain name. Those offering free domain-name registration services typically don’t give you ownership of your domain name – instead they keep the ownership for themselves, holding you virtually at ransom should you ever wish to fully own your domain name.
By paying for quality, you help to ensure that you will have a happy and successful web hosting experience!
Tip #9: Pay attention to the Terms of Service
When you enter into a hosting contract, the hosting provider’s Terms of Service contractually bind you (and them) to a number of rules. It is imperative that you read this over in some detail, and make sure that you understand each part of it. Following are some aspects to be aware of:
- Verify that uptime guarantees and remuneration for downtime are in the Terms of Service, and that they match your expectations.
- Assess your hosting provider’s privacy policies, and make sure that you know exactly how your confidential information is handled.
- Dispute resolution policies are very important. Although most hosting providers have a no-tolerance policy for spam, adult content, and other objectionable activities, be sure that their investigation procedure is detailed within the Terms of Service. It is all too easy for an upset client to e-mail your hosting provider, and for your site to be shut down if your provider does not conduct proper investigations into abuse reports.
- Ensure that you remain owner of your content. Some web hosting firms have been known to slip clauses into the Terms of Service that essentially give them ownership of all data and files that they host.
- Check for hidden fees that may not have been mentioned elsewhere.
- Consider hiring an attorney to look over the Terms of Service and any other hosting agreements before you agree to them.
Tip #10: Be aware that security comes in many forms
Protecting the integrity of your website’s data is of the up most importance. Before selecting any hosting provider, you should always ensure that security is among their top priorities. Here are some points to consider:
- Even if you are not conducting e-commerce with your website, security is still very important. Although there are many ways in which you can protect the integrity of your data (e.g. choosing difficult-to-guess passwords), it is imperative that your hosting provider also takes measures to ensure the security of their servers. You may wish to consider asking what versions of various software packages they use, what their update policy/schedule is, and what additional protection (such as server monitoring) they employ.
- The security of your hosting provider’s datacenter is also worth consideration. Although “internal” security threats, such as datacenter break-ins or access to servers by unauthorized employees are quite rare, you may wish to take them into consideration when choosing a hosting provider.
- Data integrity is another security issue, especially when it comes to the storage of mission-critical data, such as orders and customer information. If this is important to you, be sure to look into a prospective hosting provider’s backup frequency/policy. Find out how often backups of your files will be made and if they are stored on or off-site.
Keeping your data safe and secure is a top priority, shared by both you and all high-quality hosting providers.
Tip #11: Check their speed
There is perhaps nothing more annoying for a web surfer than to meet up with a slow web site. Before you sign-up for web hosting, ensure that your hosting provider is capable of handling high volumes of traffic efficiently. Here are ways of checking a web host’s overall speed:
- Find out what kind of connection they have to the Internet, but be careful! Many hosting providers make large claims by stating that they are connected to the Internet via the extremely expensive and extremely fast connections. However, what are often quoted are specifications of the capabilities of their uplink provider, not the host itself. If you’re not sure how fast a server’s connection truly is, don’t be afraid to ask!
- Although hosting providers are generally quite good at keeping their hosting hardware up to date, hardware constraints can cause certain hosting options (such as shared hosting) to become inefficient. Be sure to ask potential hosting providers both what hardware platforms they use and what limits they impose on the number of shared accounts per server.
- You may wish to consider attempting to load some pages hosted by the prospective web host, and observing the results at various times throughout the day. If pages are generally slow to load (when compared to other sites), you may wish to consider looking elsewhere.
Tip #12: Take responsibility for what you can
Although many aspects of a positive hosting experience are the responsibility of individual hosting firms, there are several additional measures that one can use to ensure their hosting experience will remain a positive one. Here are some suggestions to that end:
- Remember efficiency in design. It pays to optimize your markup, graphics and multimedia elements. Not only will your visitor’s experience be all the better due to faster load times, but you may be able to save substantially by staying under your allotted transfer.
- Even though your web hosting provider may provide a very consistent regular backup procedure, it still pays to have backups of your own. Even if you don’t backup items such as databases, you may still wish to consider keeping a backup of your site and related scripts on your own.
- Consider a “trial run” when selecting a new hosting provider. See if you can obtain a hosting contract that allows you to test their services for a couple of weeks or a month before you make your final decision.
And last, but certainly not least:
Have fun! Developing a web site and selecting a good hosting provider can be a very rewarding experience!
NobleHosts.com, How to Select a Web Host, All Rights Reserved. |
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