Choosing the Right Web Host
While choosing the right web host, you will need to ask yourself a few questions which will determine what type of service, features and support you are looking for.
1. What type of platform you will need in terms of hardware and software? Do my needs match with what they provide?
Depending upon the programming environment your web page would be, your web host platform should be chosen. For example, if you use Visual Basic Scripts, ASP, ASPX ,.NET, SQL database and the like, then your platform should be Windows NT or any other windows supporting platform.
Now, if your website is rather run with the help of Perl, mySQL database, CGI and the like, then your server’s platform should be Linux or Unix so your needs will be taken care without any complications.
2. Do I need a dedicated server or not?
In most cases when a business begins fresh online a dedicated server is not needed, as the traffic to the page usually is not high enough to warrant the expenditures. If you have a very large website with a lot of transactions and heavy traffic, then you might need a dedicated server host. If this is not the case and you have just “I-get-by” type of look on your face when people are looking.
Checkout your business plan and if you have a long-term plan (within 5 years) to grow beyond this server. Choose wisely – so you do not have to shift in the middle of your settling down. That will hurt your website – as what is used here will not be compatible anymore when upgrading takes place,
3. How much bandwidth and disk space are being offered to you? How much do you need for your website?
Your size of the website will decide the requirement here. The disk space is the space your website needs to occupy with all the features it has including images, scripts and databases. A minimum of 10 MB sometimes is too much. However, it is indeed surprising when some websites offer some 20 GB.
The bandwidth pertains to the capacity of the server to accommodate a lot of people visiting your website at the same time. This is what is called traffic, and the bandwidth is usually the size to which is can expand so the website is always visible to any and everybody at any part of the night and day. Exceeding bandwidth at many web hosts often means that your site is suspended until more bandwidth is purchased, or the overrun is used, which is extra bandwidth that is very expensive.
4. Among the other question you need to ask yourself or the person where they offer a control panel with the help of which you could upload, delete and in general. The Control Panel is very helpful to set up emails, databases and most server and site related information.
The right hosting company will offer full support and customer service, be friendly with you and helpful. They will have a knowledge base of easily accessible material for you to browse through to assist you in getting your business running, or help fix any errors in the site.
As well, the best web hosts have over 99$ uptime (offer guaranteed), fast memory, added scripts (link Fantastico) and reliability.
Todd is staff writer for GDO Web Hosting offering high quality web hosting with dilligent customer support service and high uptime. For more information on the services they offer, please visit www.gdohosting.com