Saturday, October 31, 2009

Advice to Webmasters Who Want to Get the Best Hosting

By Bethany Payne

Technical support is a huge and important part of your hosting experience. Having a site hosting always brings up problems, whether you are new to the company or just are trying new things with your site. Therefore, you want a hosting company that will solve your issues quickly. For the most difficult problems, you will need to be able to reach technical support any time of night or day. For the easiest, you will want your company to offer an online "knowledge base." In the middle, chat, email and a ticket support system should also be available.

Uptime is another factor to review in a web hosting company. When you have put hard work into planning and having your site created, you want to know others can view it. You should look for it to be functional for at least 99% of the time. Most hosting companies offer an uptime guarantee. Beware that a guarantee only means that if they don't meet their uptime standard, you are given your monthly fee back on a prorated basis. They don't usually compensate you for lost traffic or sales.

Three more factors to look at are bandwidth, disk space, and the number of sites you are allowed to host. Bandwidth is the amount of traffic between your site and the internet. Say that Oprah mentioned your site on her show. You would need a ton of bandwidth for all of those visitors. Many hosting companies now offer unlimited bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of space your files need on the web host's servers. It's all your files, photos, and videos that will make up your site. Again, most hosting companies are now offering unlimited disk space. Do be aware that with any web hosting company, if you suddenly have a large increase in your need for bandwidth or disk space, you should check in with your hosting provider, even if they offer unlimited amounts. They may have a clause in your contract that allows them to charge you for unexpected usage. Another factor you should evaluate with a web hosting plan is the number of sites you are allowed to host. Top hosting companies are allowing for unlimited domains.

Price, price, price. I think that old adage is true that you get what you pay for. You should balance a low price with good technical support and services. There are companies that offer free hosting, but you usually have to put up with advertising by the hosting company on your site. There are also some free hosting companies without advertising, but they don't last long. You don't need the trouble of moving your site to a new host once you've already been through the trouble of setting it up. Find a hosting company with a decent price and be sure they have excellent services and technical support.

Being the owner or webmaster of your own site is a joy. You may keep it for years and years. Therefore, be certain to pick a hosting company that will have all the services and support that you need.

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