What Should I Look for In A Web Host?
Reliability: Plain and simple, your web host
should be reliable. In fact, you should actually
look for web host providers that guarantee uptime
(the time when it is functional) - preferably in the
99 or 99.5% or higher time. While most hosts do not
provide refunds or discount if hosting time falls
below a certain point, without that guarantee, the
web host will have little incentive to ensure that
its servers are running all the time. You can verify
that your website is up and running from multiple
locations around the world with
website
monitoring plans from InternetSupervision.com
Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth): Data
transfer, commonly known as "bandwidth", is the
amount of data (usually measured in 'bytes') that
are transferred from your server to visitors when
they browse your website. Do your best to avoid web
hosts which offer unlimited bandwidth or unlimited
transfer. Web hosts must pay for bandwidth and
transfer, so if you consume a lot of it, they will
not sit back and absorb your costs - they may even
charge you for exceeding the "unlimited bandwidth"
arrangement that they used to attract you in the
first place and simply shut down your site rendering
it unavailable to visitors - in which case, having a
website monitoring plan from
InternetSupervision may prove useful.
Technical support: You may be surprised at
how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient
of times when it comes to web hosting. Choosing a
web host that offers a technical support function 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, all year around is
essential to your success. Even the best web hosts
have downtime however and it's important to have an
independent
third party website monitoring company watching
your site when you cannot. You may even find that
using a website monitoring service will notify you
before you web host does!
FTP, PHP, Perl CGI-BIN access, SSI, .htaccess,
telnet, SSH crontabs: If you are paying for Web
hosting, make sure that you have access to these
features. Seek out a commercial host that allows you
to install PHP or CGI scripts on your own, use .htaccess
if you want to customize error pages or protect your
site (to prevent bandwith theft or hotlinking) and
use Telnet or SSH access to test CGI scrips or
maintain databses. If your host does allow you to
use these services make sure that you are
monitoring
your website in case something goes wrong and
the changes or installations you have made are
operating correcting.
SSL (secure server), MySQL, Shopping Cart: If
you are planning on doing any sort of business
through your website, you might want to look out to
see if the host provides these facilities. You will
definitely need SSL if you plan to collect credit
card information on your site. If you do install a
shopping cart on your system, it is essential that
you maximize your
website
uptime and check individual Web pages availability
from multiple locations around the world.
Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding:
Professional Web hosting companies always offers
email addresses associated with your domain. Always
choose a Web host that offers multiple email
address, provides built-in customizable
autoresponders and can forward email message to a
predetermined "catch-all" email address if so
desired. Since most online companies use email as a
primary means to communicate to their customers and
clients it is essential that your email server is up
and running all the time. If you're concerned about
your email server going down and losing important
email messages,
monitor
your websites email server at
InternetSupervision.com.
Monitor One Website Free at InternetSupervision.com