How to choose the right web hosting company by Nadin Roth
You have made up your mind that you will buy a domain name (or several) and
take out web hosting from a web hosting provider.
First some considerations about the domain name(s)
Domain names do not really have anything to do with web hosting and can be
registered independently from the web hosting package. There are advantages if
you have domain name and web hosting separate. For example, if the web hosting
company you selected fails to provide a good service, all you need to do is
find a better web hosting company and change the domain name settings. If you
have domain name and web hosting with the same company and the company ceases
trading, the last thing they think about is your web hosting or domain name. By
having them separate, you are lowering the risk.
Disadvantages of registering the domain name with your web hosting company
Many web hosting companies offer to register domain names on your behalf. You
think that your domain name is with your web hosting company, when, in fact,
they register it through some third party registrar for you. You then receive
an invoice in 2 years time from a company you never heard of, ignore it, and in
the worst case lose your domain name.
Furthermore, in many cases, you will not get access to your domain name details
nor will you be given a domain name control panel. Why do you need a domain
name control panel? You need to be able to update the contact information for
your domain name(s). If you move house for example and don't update you domain
name details and for some reason you need to change registrar etc. (or because
your web hosting company ceased trading), you are in danger of losing your
domain name because you cannot prove any longer that you are the owner of a
certain domain name.
Also, a domain name control panel allows you to change email forwarding, web
forwarding, and most importantly, the domain name servers, as well as some
other settings. Check out www.123-reg.co.uk if you want to find out more about
that.
Have a good look around online and check out different web hosting providers.
There are many large web hosting companies out there such as 1and1. The
advantage of registering with a large web hosting company is that they have
hardly any downtime and their servers will be fast and up-to-date with the
latest spam protection etc. Web hosting can be costly though if you reqister
with a large web hosting company and if you want any additional services, you
will have to pay for them. Support can be an issue too - you usually have to
fight through hundreds of "Frequently Asked Questions" before you are allowed
to send an email to their support team. You might also have to call a Premium
Rate phone number if you need to speak to someone urgently. These rates can
rate from 0.50 to 2 per minute (!) or even more. In most cases, you will
receive good support, but in some cases you might be put through to an
unexperienced person who has to speak to their supervisor to double-check
things frequently - and all that at a premium rate!
The biggest problem with large web hosting providers is that if you miss the
annual payment and do not react to their payment reminders - they will remove
your website, your account, without further notice. In some cases, there will
not be any chance to recover your website. With a large web hosting company,
your website is just a number in a very large pool of websites. If they lose
your custom, so what!
Web hosting with a smaller web hosting provider
If you find a reliable smaller web hosting provider, chances are that you will
receive a personal service, and support questions are answered with a lot more
detail and a lot quicker. Most likely, you can call a UK landline or an 0845 or
0870 number which is a lot cheaper than 2 per minute. In some cases, you might
be able to receive a reply to your support question - which you sent on a
Saturday evening - that same night.
If you miss your payment with a smaller web hosting company, they will most
likely call you personally and remind you on your late payment. They are keen
to keep you as a customer and will probably not remove your account and your
website immediately.
Web Statistics
Ask the web hosting company if they provide extensive website statistics. You
want to know how many visitors have accessed your website, what search terms
they used to find your website in Google and other search engines, how many
visitors you have per day, on a certain day of the week, and so on. Please also
ask if you can have access to the website log files. You might think that
adding a website hit counter will provide enough information, but that is
actually the most inaccurate method of counting your website visitors - and
apart from that they look tacky and unprofessional. Your web hosting company
should provide statistics that are at least as comprehensive as Webalizer and
if statistics are important for you, you need to have access to your log files
which can then be analyzed with statistics analysing software (such as
Surfstats).
E-Mail issues to watch out for
Before you take out web hosting, ask them if they provide SMTP/POP3 which you
need to set up email accounts. If you want one or several e-mail addresses with
your website - such as sales@mydomain.com - the web hosting company needs to
provide SMTP/POP3 setup. Some web hosting companies only allow you to receive
emails sent to sales@mydomain.com, but they will not allow you to use these
e-mail addresses to send e-mails from. They will simply argue that you can use
your Internet Service Provider E-Mail address - such as
joe.smith@btopenworld.com. This does not look professional at all, and you
should avoid web hosting companies that do not provide SMTP/POP3 service.
Backups
Check with your web hosting company how often backups are made. Usually,
backups are made on a daily basis. If you have a large online store on your
website and the server room at the web hosting premises is on fire, you will
lose all your work if they do not back up their web server files. So please
check if they have a backup routine in place.
Free Webhosting with your internet service provider
Please do not use this! Your internet service provider company provide an
internet connection. That is what they specialise in. They sometimes "throw in"
free web hosting for up to 100 MB or even more. They normally do not provide
SMTP / POP3 setup for the sending / receiving of emails related to your website
(such as sales@mydomain.com), nor will they provide databases, server scripting
language support and such like. Usually, you can only upload websites developed
in pure HTML, and in some cases you will not be able to use FTP software for
uploading your files and managing your files on the web server. Your business
website will proabably use some sort of server-side scripting language - such
as ASP, PHP etc. and maybe use a database such as MySQL. If your website is
with your Internet Service Provider, the support for this service can be poor
and the account can sometimes not be upgraded to include server-side scripting
languages, and/or databases.
Web Hosting Costs
Web Hosting costs can vary greatly. You can take out web hosting for as little
as 15 per year, or you can get web hosting, including 5 email addresses, 100
MB web space (which is a lot for a small business presence) for as little as
30 per year (check out www.plugsocket.com). If you buy a web design magazine
(such as NET - www.netmag.co.uk), you will see many adverts from bigger web
hosting companies. Check out their prices, their policies, and maybe give them
a call - you will find out how long it takes until your call is answered.
Do not jump in because it is cheap, and conversely, do not think the service
must be great because it is expensive. Check out what is on offer and then make
an informed decision.
About the Author
Nadin Roth is web designer of CreatWeb, a Web
Design Company in West Lothian, Scotland.
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