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September 18, 2005
How to find the best hosting companies out there (part 2)
Here’s the second part of yesterday’s posting on how to find the best web host out there. For obvious reasons I will continue to use Globat.com as my example hosting company of choice. ;-)
Important factors to consider when selecting a web hosting provider are:
Storage
Depending on the type of site you are running the average web page is conventionally less than 50 KB in size. Use this number to calculate the actual space required to host your entire website. Add to it the collective size of the images used in your site and also the associated mailboxes as email stored in your mailboxes usually counts against your storage quota. Your space requirement grows further, if your site uses one or several MySQL databases to store customer information and/or process online transactions. Opt for a web host that provides ample server space to hold your site and support its growth. Moving your entire site from one host to another could be a bit of a hassle (although Chris and I have developed a patent-pending process to completely automate this, which we will release to the public shortly). At the same time, do not fall for companies offering unlimited disk space. Nothing is truly unlimited and you will run the danger of being “kicked out”, if you start using huge amounts of resources. Globat’s smallest hosting account (TeraByte Package™) starts with a whooping 10,000 MB of storage, which is actually a huge amount of space and most likely more than you will ever need.
Bandwidth
Calculate the required bandwidth by multiplying the number of pages and images used in the site with the number of visitors coming to your site every month. Bandwidth usage increases whenever a user goes through your site. Due to the highly competitive web hosting market web hosting services regularly offering 50, 75 or even 100 Gigabyte of bandwidth per month and more. Globat goes up to 4.5 Terabyte/year (~400 Gigabyte/month), which, at the time of me writing this, is the largest bandwidth offer available for shared hosting on the net (at least for what we charge) . The bandwidth needed for your website should be calculated generously to avoid potential overage charges. Once again, be cautious of services that promise "unlimited bandwidth". Take it from me, there is no such thing as unlimited or un-metered bandwidth. Bandwidth is one of every hosting company’s largest monthly expense items and as such closely monitored and policed against “abusers”. Hosting companies that promote this feature might allow a substantial amount of traffic to your website, but it will definitely not be "unlimited". It is usually better to know the maximum amount of bandwidth allowed beforehand.
Security Measures
Pretty much all leading web hosting companies offer some form of network security measures, which are required to keep their servers safe from viruses and hackers. Beyond that individual website security is pretty much up to the website owner. Make sure you use hard to guess passwords and change them regularly. If you operate an online store supporting online transactions and collection of credit cards along with shoppers' other personal data, increased security is imperative for your website and even required under U.S. laws. You must then invest in a web hosting plan that comes with Secured Socked Layer (SSL) data-encryption and more advanced tools and technology to keep your site secure (check out our TeraByte T02 Package™). In addition to the key factors discussed above, other issues that can help you in selecting a suitable web hosting provider are:
Reputation
Do your research! Ask for references and look at some websites that the company already hosts on its servers. If possible, find the number and type of clients they serve and talk to some of these clients to know their opinion about the hosting company. Ensure the hosting service you decide on is reliable, supportive and does what it says. You might also want to check on a particular web host’s standing with the Better Business Bureau.
Customer Service
My favorite topic and generally the area in the web hosting industry that separates the men from the boys! At Globat we pride ourselves for setting very high standards for customer care. Lou Rio, our Director of customer service, has done this as one of the customer service executives at Xerox for the past 25 years and continues his quest for excellence by enhancing and supporting our international 24/7 customer service team. A hosting company offering ‘round the clock customer support by any means possible will be significantly more useful than a provider promising support only during the regular working hours or no support at all. Go through their website and the accompanying help pages to check if they are detailed enough for you. See if they provide a toll-free telephone number to save you the additional cost of making a long distance phone call. Are there other ways to get help, if you need to (i.e. online ticket system, live chat, etc.)? Sometimes, web hosts advertise 24/7 support but fail to live up to their promise. Check if somebody is actually available by contacting them at odd hours and on off days. Email them some queries to judge their responsiveness. Call their phone support number a few times and post at least 1-2 support tickets to test their response times and quality.
Uptime, Servers and Network Infrastructure (the “tech stuff”)
A website is only as good as the company it is hosted with! The number one most important requirement for a website is that it needs to be “up”. Uptime is critical to the success of your site, your reputation, and potentially even your business. Now, trust me when I say that every web host goes down once in a while. Keep in mind that you are dealing with computers and those guys “act up” once in a while. I have yet to find a 100% uptime web hosts and you should reasonably expect uptime to be around 99.8%+ for the more reputable hosting companies. 99.8% uptime basically means that out of 720 possible uptime hours in a calendar month you should expect 2 hours of downtime (not necessarily in one block). This does not include scheduled maintenance; which should always be announced well in advance and performed during off-peak hours at night. Usually, the type of server the web host uses is presumed to be not that important, but it can greatly affect the cost of your hosting plan. Web hosts that use unix/linux-based Apache servers (95% of all hosts out there do use some form of unix/linux) generally offer more options at a much more economical rate. With these type of servers, you will be able to exercise an increased control over your site by being able to things such as blocking irrelevant IP addresses, customizing error messages, and protecting graphics and images used in your web pages. However, if you use ASP in your website there is no other option but to use a windows-based server (Globat does not support ASP), which are usually costlier and less flexible. Contrary to common beliefs you do not have to use a windows-based server just because you are using MS Frontpage®. Most leading web hosting companies fully support FrontPage and its extensions on unix and linux platforms.
Access to FTP
Select a web host that allows you constant FTP service so you can upload your web files whenever you want to. Do not fall for cheaper or free plans with FTP usage restrictions.
Statistics and Log Files
Once your site is on the Internet, you most likely would also want to track its performance for which you require appropriate software that captures and analyses all the necessary data. Good web hosting companies usually offer programs to help you measure the success of your website using a familiar statistics package. Using your web host's build-in stats will also save you the trouble of dealing with several third-parties in case you need troubleshooting assistance.
Duration of Service Plan
Most commonly web hosting providers offer quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly plans. Typically, they offer attractive discounts or additional services on buying a longer term plan. See if the additional services offered by the web host of your choice will be useful and purchase a plan only after assessing your requirement.
Email Management
Opt for a web hosting plan that offers several email addresses, which you control and assign, so you can generate email addresses of your choice such as info@yourwebsite.com or sales@yourwebsite.com adding to the professional image of a website. Globat hosting accounts (as much as many other leading hosts) come with as man email addresses as you like as well as aliases and forwarders, which you maintain from within your control panel.
Buying from Resellers
Several smaller web hosting companies are actually resellers of another, larger parent company. The downside of working with resellers is that quite often they are unaware of business details and internal issues. Consequently, people using the services suffer. However, not all resellers are ignorant to these facts. When opting for a reseller web hosting service explore both the reselling agent as well as the parent company.
In summary, you should understand that most likely no company can offer everything you will ever need, even if there are no financial constraints. The web hosting market is very competitive and offers out there are aggressive. Marketing is a necessity for today’s web hosts as is the use of affiliates to refer new customers. Don’t overpay as in a commodity market you will not always get what you pay for! Expensive web hosting plans do not necessarily equate to excellent services or better features. Reputation and length of time in business are better factors to judge a possible fit. Study the market with respect to your needs and see which companies offer the best deals suitable to your website requirement. Overall, be critical when search for the hosting company of your choice; you might have to “live” with your decision for quite a while.
Posted by Ben at September 18, 2005 03:09 PM
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