Djarot Studio

10 Things You Must Know to Find the Best Web Hosting

Jarot, April 22, 2009 1:10 am. Yeah, you got it right, it's YET another tips to find web hosting. When you google this keyword, you 'd get upto 9 mils results on how to choose web hosting. So why bother to write something within the same topic? I do this as a personal note. A place where can I bookmark, where the most fun part is it's my own place. With the spirit of Adding some values out of what 's already there out there, I 'm continuing my typing.

1. Speed and Reliability.

Web host should be fast, yet reliable. You 'd notice this word "UPTIME" mentioned all over webhost provider. It refers to the time when this offered service is functional. Did you even know that you should go for the one with minimum uptime 99%? You heard me right, 99% is a minimum. Don't go anything below it. In fact, 99% is too low. You should actually go with higher than 99.5% uptime. Guarantee always reflect to some amount of compensation. Be sure you got that in hand.

2. To Go or Not To Go With Unlimited

Point 2 here would be about traffic or sometimes called bandwidth which refer to the real state: Data Transfer. How much amount of bytes that your site transferred to your visitor when they 're on your site and browse around. To go or Not to go with Unlimited bandwidth offers, that 's the question. Never believe any "unlimited" terms advertised on some web host, as unlimited is ain't really unlimited at all in the end. You 'd never be able to use that oh-so-called-unlimited-amount, 'coz it will always hit other limits - which sometimes specified somewhere else where you could find it being redefined to be "yeah-it-actually-is-limited" in some way. Always go for offers that stated clearly how much traffic of some offered packages allows.

Oh, if you still need me to say it out loud, the answer would always be, Not to Go. And buddy, this point is also applied for this popular term called Unlimited Disk Space. End of point 2.

3. A Real Functional Technical support

When I say functional, I mean functional. You know, when you need 'em they around. When You ask things they answered. Do they offered a functional 24/7 support? Refers to 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. Refers to all year around? You 'll gonna need a webhost that have staff working on weekends and some national holidays. Things often went wrong at some of the most inconvenient times, and you 'd be surprised that a web hosting provider that advertise 24/7 support doesn't really have this kinda support on their end. I 've got some worse moments of my own with this kind of provider. I got my self in to a webhost that run by bunch of salesmen, which have this smooth talky-talk, but not really how to fix problems. So tested it out first.

4. Some Fancy Thingy Called Software

I 'm referring to these things : PHP, .htaccess, FTP, MySQL, Perl, SSI, telnet, crontabs, SSH, Email, POP3, Auto Responders, Mail Forwarding. Make sure, you have all that, and you can use each and every one of 'em without asking for approval first. Yeah, there 're some web hosts don 't allow you install Perl or PHP scripts, not without their approval. You can't really have some SEF (search engine friendly) url or customized Error pages if you don 't have access to .htaccess. You 'll gonna need MySQL to create database based kinda of websites. You 'll gonna need all email functions such your own email address (on your own domain name), auto responder, pop3, forwarding.

I 'm also referring to Shopping Cart and SSL / secure server, if you 're planning on creating an e-commerce site that need to collect credit card for your payment. Stay clear of web hosting provider that don 't offer these facilities provided.

5. Your Own Administration Backend

This point here I 'm talking about would be the Control Panel. You may find it being called with some other various names, such Control Panel, Admin Panel, Cpanel and such. A place where you could administer all things about your own hosting account on your own. You don't wanna spend your money to a web hosting that whenever you need to create your email address, you should ask their support to do so, right? It 's one of the most common thing we webmaster do all the time over and over again, and it would be great great hassle if it should be a "should-wait-on-technical-support" kinda task.

6. Multiple Domain and Sub-Domains

You should definitely aim for this if, you 're planning on having multiple domains or multiple sub domains. Check out also, the extra amount - if there 're any - they would charge for this extra feature.

7. Operating System Types

Yeah, the type of server and operating system of it, is matter. Well, you can't really go for others if you 'd use asp programs, you would need to go with Windows server. In other flip side of it, is the more stable, feature-laden and often cheaper Unix-based systems, which runs Apache server. Me, Unix-based is my preferable and favorite choice. The why is, with the same goal of creating dynamically generated pages which access the database, writing it down on PHP is alot more MORE then tying down to ASP. I meant it. You could configure a lot of facilities with no requirement to ask your technical support to implement 'em. Isn' t it the coolest thing?

8. Payment Plans and Pricey Thingy

Price always is factor. And most go for the cheapest. But not in this post. It 's about things to help you to find the Best web hosting, and NOT the cheapest one. Based on my own personal experiences, go for the cheaper one is desirable, but the other flip side of it, is you would often get what you've paid for. Cheaper always means lack on something. In my experience, they always lack on support, uptime, and speed. It doesn't necessarily always mean that the best is the most expensive one. Not always. So playing the period plans would help you a lot on testing out things. Buying a monthly package would allows you to switch quickly if your web host turned out to be dissatisfying.

9. Reseller Web Hosting

It 's a term of a web hosting who doesn't really own their web servers. They 're a reseller of some other hosting company. It would be disadvantages, as you might be dealing with some people who don 't really know the what and the how the system they 're selling. But, not all resellers are disadvantages, as there 're some reliable and fast resellers which actually good and cheaper than their orig hosting company. Bottom line is, if you 're in this situation, your best shot is investigate both.

User Reviews

It always matters to hear things from users end. They 've been there using the services, so hearing from them about their experiences on how certain web hosting services doing so far would always be great point of consideration for ya. For me it 's pretty much essential. Do some researches to some web hosting reviews, of some top 10 web hosting listing. Spend your time to read, you wont regret of the "found-out" you 'd discover.

Okay so, I 'm having this strange de-javu again by the time I read this writing. As all things above - you could find 'em already out there. Well, atleast I write 'em down on my own perspective. Somebody might thought my point of view is interesting, who knows? Hope it help you out in some sort of point.