 CHOOSING
YOUR WEB HOSTING PROVIDER |
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What are some of the things you should look for when choosing
a web host? Here is the basic criteria for choosing a commercial
web hosting solution.
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 Reliability
and Speed of Access |
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Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, they should
guarantee uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for
a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too
low - it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should
provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount)
if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees
are often hard to enforce from your end - the host usually
requires all sorts of documentation. However, without that
guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure
that its servers are running all the time.
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Data
Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth) |
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Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as "traffic"
or "bandwidth") is the amount of bytes transferred
from your site to visitors when they browse your site. Don't
believe any commercial web host that advertises "unlimited
bandwidth". The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and
if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your
costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the
hard way when they suddenly receive an exhorbitant bill for
having "exceeded" the "unlimited bandwidth".
Always look for details
on how much traffic the package allows. To give you a rough
idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most
new sites that are not software archives or the like use less
than 3GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements
will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known
(and well-linked), so you will need to also check their policy
for overages: is there a published charge per GB over the
allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual
usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage?
It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay
for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site
will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.
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Disk
Space |
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For the same reason
as bandwidth, watch out also for those "unlimited disk
space" schemes. Most sites need less than 5 MB to 10 MB
of web space. Email does require a lot of Disk Space if you
are not downloading your emails from the server to your local
mail client. Do not go for small disk space even if your web
site requires less amount to store the web files. This could
result in your emails bouncing off due to lack of disk space. |
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Technical
Support |
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Does its technical support
function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7),
all year around? Do not accept a host which does not have staff
working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised
at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times.
Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7
support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind
of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday
nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to
respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are
technically competent. You wouldn't want to sign up for a host
that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only how to sell and
not fix problems. |
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Control
Panel |
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This is called various
names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you
to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically,
and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like
add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords
for your account. Do not go for a host where you have to go
through their technical support each time you want to change
a password or add/delete an email account. Such chores are common
maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time
again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for
their technical support to make the changes for you. |
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Subdomains
and Virtual Hosting |
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For those who are thinking
of selling web space or having multiple domains or subdomains
hosted in your account, you should look to see if they provide
this, and the amount extra that they charge for this (whether
it is a one-time or monthly charge, etc). |
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Server
and Operating System |
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Is the type of operating system and server important? Whether
you think so or not on the theoretical level, there are a
few practical reasons for looking out for the type of server.
In general, if you want to use things like ASP or ASP.NET,
you have no choice but to look for a Windows 2000/2003 machine
for your server.
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Price |
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We were actually hesitant
to list this, but guess it's futile not to. However, a word
of caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise
that you often get what you pay for, although it's not necessarily
true that the most expensive hosts are the best. |
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Resellers
or Own Servers? |
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Not all hosting companies
own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually
resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of
using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with
people who don't know much about the system they are selling
and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your
technical support request to the actual hosting company for
it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the
reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise
not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable
and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact,
a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their
original hosting company. If you find out that a particular
company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the
reseller and the real hosting company. |
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Monthly/Quarterly/Annual
Payment Plans |
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Most web hosts allow
you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper
rate than if you were to pay monthly. Paying monthly allows
you to switch web hosts quickly when you find that the current
host does not meet your requirements. |
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