How to Compare Between Web Hosting Providers

There are Three Main Considerations When You Are Choosing a Web Host.  These are Features, Support and Value.

Common Web Hosting Features 

Virtual Web Hosting or Dedicated Server?

Virtual Web Hosting means that your site is located on a certain server, and there are also other websites hosted on the same server, whereas a Dedicated Server means that there is only your site or ones you authorise hosted on your server. For small to medium business, the best (cheapest) option is to go with virtual Web Hosting. If your web-site is larger, or has many large files for download, then you may wish to consider moving to a Dedicated Server. Personally, I would advise that the best move is to start with the virtual server, and upgrade if your business/site grows too big for it.

Once you've decided whether you want Virtual Web Hosting or a Dedicated Server, the next things you will want to compare are:

Storage.

How many MB's of space will you be allocated to store your website?  Many web hosts use the term unlimited rather freely, when the small print of your hosting agreement does place restrictions.

Data Transfer.

How many GB's of data transfer will your Web Hosting provider allow you?

POP3 email accounts.

How many do you get?

Browser-based email.

This allows you to access your email accounts from anywhere that you have internet access.

Up-time.

Really, do yourself a favour and don't choose anyone if their stated up-time is anything less than 99.5%. 99.9% uptime would mean that you website would be unaccessible for no more than 43 minutes per month in total. A good company will also offer refunds if they fail to meet this requirement.

Web-Stats.

Can you access your website's log files and server statistics?  This is not too much of a big deal, as the web-stats you get with most web hosting packages is generally not that useful, anyway.  Once you get up and running, you should set up Google Analytics (free!), which is much better, anyway.

Easy Upgrades.

If you want to upgrade your account, to add more email accounts or add more space, this should be no more difficult than a quick email or phone call. Sadly this is often not the case.

Control Panel.

What you will want from this is an easy-to-use intuitive interface.  Control Panels are not especially exciting, but you will want your Web Host to have made a reasonable effort to make the processes understandable.

MySQL.

FrontPage extensions. You'll need these if you use FrontPage to design your website.

CGI-Bin

SSI (Server Side Includes) 

Allows you to dynamically include data, such as news feeds, etc

PHP Support

PHP is used by many of the websites you will be familiar with, to create dynamic webpages.  This means that you can include log-ins, tools for visitors to rate products or up-load files, all the stuff that makes the World Wide Web what it is today.  You may not feel that you will use these features just yet, but any good Web Hosting service ought to be able to support PHP.

eCommerce solutions. 

This is not for everybody, but if you are keen to get out there and start making money online as quickly as possible, there are a couple of very reputable Hosting services out there that offer affiliate management, complete customer relationship management features, and everything else you need to build & manage your web site. These ones are more pricey at around £16 per month, but do offer schemes where if you refer them 3 other customers then your hosting is paid for, plus you can make a small profit.

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