Web Hosting
[private].[/private]There’s never been a better time to buy web hosting, with web hosts becoming seemingly as common as websites themselves.
The first thing you will probably consider is price, since you want to keep operating costs down, and this is something that varies greatly due to the fact that many companies are simply reselling webspace for another company. Once you have a resale chain of a few companies, i.e. A sells to B, who sells to C, who sells to you, you’re going to be paying much more than you really should be.
As a rough guide, in US dollars, you should pay no more than $10 per month for;
• 250MB Webspace – Plenty of storage space for your site and files.
• 40GB Bandwidth – Enough to cope with 1000′s of visitors to your site each month.
• Unlimited Email Addresses – with support for POP3, IMAP & SMTP.
• PHP4 and Perl – Support for PHP4 and Perl/CGI scripting.
• Unlimited MySQL Databases
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• cPanel or Plesk (further detailed below)
• Comprehensive Statistics – Allowing you to monitor traffic
• Free Support
• Near to 100% uptime
The items listed above are adequate for setting up just about any site, so feel free to use it as a guide when shopping for web hosting. Please note however, if you plan on using your own e-commerce solutions, SSL will also be required.
Before choosing a web host however, a customer also needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use, such considerations including database server software, scripting software, and operating system.
Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software, and as mentioned in our rough price guide you’ll likely be looking to have other services included, such as email for their business domain, databases or multi-media services for streaming media.
Web Hosting Interfaces
Today, web hosting packages often include a Web Content Management System, so the end-user doesn’t have to worry about the more technical aspects such as script installations and can create their website’s content with the minimum of effort. If you’re not familiar with web space or design in general, this can be a Godsend and is definitely worth looking in to.
Better still, the host you select may also provide an interface control panel (e.g. cPanel, Plesk or others) for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services such as e-mail. As mentioned, this will really save you and your programmer lots of time, so enquire beforehand about what type of interface your potential web host will use. With such interfaces, and using cPanel’s Fantastico script as an example, you will be able to perform tasks such as setting up discussion forums, with just one click of a button. The same applies to image galleries, e-commerce scripts, blogs and even website templates themselves.
Hosting Reliability, Uptime and SLA’s
It’s no good having a web host if their servers are constantly down or busy. Ask your potential host for proof of their hosting uptime before you decide that they are right for you. Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet.
A common claim from the popular hosting providers is ’99% or 99.9% server uptime’ but this often refers only to a server being powered on and doesn’t account for network downtime. Real downtime can potentially be larger than the percentage guaranteed by the provider and will cost your business money in the long run.
Before you go ahead with finding a web host, read the company’s SLA (Service Level Agreement). Many providers tie uptime, and accessibility, into their SLA which may or may not include refunds, or reduced costs if performance goals are not met.
