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Factors to be consider when choosing a Web Hosting provider

Bandwidth – how many visitors are you expecting? is the stuff on your site going to be big or small (i.e. movies & pictures vs. plain text)

Purpose – Is it for personal or business use? Some allow one or the other or both. It'll be obvious which one they want.

Coding – will it just be html and maybe css and javascript (i.e. your first site) or do you want PHP, MySQL, etc.

Reputability – if you're going to pay, check with the BBB, they'll show you complaints against the company and how many

Ads – this exists only if it's going to be free hosting. where are the ads going to be (top/bottom banner ads or pop-ups, etc.).

Features – sure .. they'll feature 99.9% uptime .. but they pretty much all stay up always, look at other features that you'll like, i.e. counters, disk space (for those pictures or videos), freebies, etc.

I personally like Bravenet for free hosting and InMotion Hosting for paid hosting.

Reliability and speed of access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its 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.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

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. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises "unlimited transfer", even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine "unlimited" to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits. for more details, see the article The Fine Print in Web Hosting: Resource Usage Limits.

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 3 GB 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.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those "unlimited disk space" schemes. most sites need less than 10 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 200 MB or 500 MB (or "unlimited space"), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don't let the 500 MB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there. as a rough gauge, thefreecountry.com, which had about 150 pages when this article was first written, used less than 5 MB for its pages and associated files.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will 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 know how to sell and not fix problems.

FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, MySQL, crontabs

If you are paying for a site, you really should make sure you have all of these.

Note that some commercial hosts do not allow you to install PHP or Perl scripts ("what is PHP and Perl?") without their approval. this is not desirable since it means that you have to wait for them before you can implement a feature on your site. ".htaccess" is needed if you are to do things like customize your error pages (pages that display when, say, a user requests for a non-existent page on your site) or to protect your site in various ways (such as to prevent bandwidth theft and hotlinking, etc).

Telnet or SSH access is useful for certain things, including testing certain scripts (programs), maintaining databases, etc. MySQL is needed if you want to run a blog or a content management system. Cron is a type of program scheduler that lets you run programs at certain times of the day (eg, once a day). Check to

Peoples own experience with the provider:

I suggest you visit http://www.hostingcouponoffer.com they come with a free domain name, unlimited webspace and bandwidth.

They also come with a website building wizard to get your site up and running the easy way.

Also when you go with the hosting enter discount code 25OFF for 25% off all their plans.

I have several sites with them and have been more than happy with their help and support.

Hope this helps

Louise

Top 4 important aspects to choose a Web Hosting Provider
1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Speed
4. Price
Free webhosting is not stable. You may face on data lost, privacy problem with freehostings.
I use hostlgator and it is cheap but stabale hosting . 6.9/month
With a coupon code , you can use their hosting for almost free, $0.01
You may read some reviews, user feedback, and speed test here:
http://www.hostgator-review-coupon.org/
You can also get some coupon code to save money.

you can check http://dmrurl.com/Wf0q11
it includes all you need consider before choosing a web hosting service, the website also include a web hosting comparison so you can consider your possibilities fairly
hope that helps

**** How to choose a Reliable Web Host?

Four points to consider when choosing a web hosting service:

Reliability and uptime:
Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. it is very important your service be uptime (functioning and available for use). it means you can access your account whenever you want to update your web pages, and users can enter your website whenever they refer to your site address. if your hosting service is not uptime it can be catastrophic!

Disk space:
Choose a web host with unlimited disk space, which allows you to build as many web pages as you want

Bandwidth:
Try to pick a web host with unlimited data transfer, which allows you to support as many visitors as you want

Ease of Control Panel:
It is important that the control panel is easy to use and all information can be accessed easily.

*** where Can You get started? How Much does it Cost?
Take a look at:
http://www.threehosts.com
http://www.threehosts.com/build
There you can reach the three reputable companies that are leaders in the web hosting industry.

You have a couple of choices when it comes to web hosting – you can get it for free or you can spend for it. Naturally, it would be lovely if web hosting would be free for all of us but understand that all the needs of your company website must be met by the free web hosting plan if you want your future to look rosy.

These are key issues to address.

Are you willing to deal with advertisements that may take too much space or would have an irritable effect on your readers? These ads are often required by free web hosting plans because it’s the only reason they can continue letting people enjoy free web hosting.

Are you “cool” with low bandwidth access and minimal web space?

If you’re not okay with the following facts I presented, then I suggest you go with a trusted web consultant and I recommend this website which offers this service for you: http://www.webhostingreviewz.com

Best wishes,

1.Uptime guarantee: Look for a host with an uptime guarantee of a 99.9%. in fact, no hosting company can guarantee 100% uptime, but it should not lower then 99.5%.

2.Space and Bandwidth: Don’t believe any web host that advertises "unlimited space" and "unlimited bandwidth".Usually you will find that they redefine "unlimited" to be limited in some way, so suggest you to contact they and ask how "limited" .

3.Technical support: does the web hosting service provide 24×7 supports? do they respond rapidly to your issue? a good hosting compay should know how to solve any problems you have, and always in 24 hours.

4.Control Panel: whether it is easy and fast manage your host. Some hosting companys support Demo, suggest you try it before buy.

5.Amount of domain add: if you want to build more websites in one host, you should look to see how many can allow to add, and whether need charge for this.

6.Free domain include: be wary of hosts that include a free domain name with their hosting package, unless you are certain this domain belong to you. for example, if you will not use their host, whether you can still use this domain, can transfer to another domain registrar?

7.Price and Renewals: The most expensive hosts not necessarily are the best, but price compare is need. Note the Renewals price, some host company first year price is cheap, but renewals price is expensive.

8.Payment and Money back Guarantee: most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. if you want save money, i suggest you look to see their Money back Guarantee, minimum is 30 days as a good hosting company i think. And note another payment question of auto renewals, if you pay as credit card, remember to cancel auto renewals when you will not use their host again.

9.Hosting features: Windows hosting support like Asp, Asp.net, Ms access, Ms SQL. Linux hosting support like Php, Mysql, Perl, CGI, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, MySQL, crontabs. And general features support like FTP, Email, Data backup, SSL, etc. if you run scripts need special spport, suggest to contact before buy.

10.Reviews: You should make it a point to check out what others have to say about the web host. Like using Google search for honest reviews, and some web hosting talk forum is another good place to check.

In general, i believe you can choose a good web hosting if you do as above.

Hi,
Factors to be considered when choosing a web hosting provider are as below:
-price
-technical support
-bandwidth
-disk space
For me, "IX Webhosting" is the best because it's very cheap with very big bandwidth and disk space.Check it out here:
http://ebeezz.com/top50_webhosting.htm

- speed
– features
– space
– bandwidth

Data Transfer Rates – Data transfer will need to be determined based on the amount of information that will be downloaded

Platforms – The two most common systems available are Windows based servers versus some flavor of UNIX (Linux and Solaris).

Monitoring – to prevent service interruptions.

Automation – although dedicated web servers may require a greater degree of skill, certain dedicated server hosting companies may offer software that will automate common procedures

Scalability – hosting providers should be able to account for major growth.

Service Level Agreements – More dedicated server hosts are publishing their SLA's, which thoroughly documents what they will do in exchange for what the customer is responsible for.

Factors to be consider when choosing a Web Hosting Provider?