I get asked all the time how to choose a web host so I finally sat down and typed this out and will direct people to this post in the future. For more about podcasting and other web development services, check out HOWTOPODCAST.net.
There are several factors to think about when you decide you want to start a website. Let’s go down the list of things that I take into consideration when picking who I’m going to host my website with.
PRICE
For most people, price is not only where they start, but it’s where they end when looking for a web hosting company. We have all seen the blinking ads on websites claiming $1.99 or $2.99 hosting. I have been sucked into that in the past and boy did I pay the price (pun intended).
When we say we want something cheap, we obviously are referring to the price and not the quality. Sadly, when it comes to shared hosting, the price and the service generally go hand in hand. My thoughts on paying a lot for hosting have changed a bit over the years. After so many bad experiences with shared hosting companies, I was skeptical about trying anymore of them until a couple recent positive experiences.
BANDWIDTH
I’m sure you have seen companies boasting how much bandwidth they will give you per month. Without using the techie double talk that you will encounter when visiting most web hosting sites, I will lay it out for you. Many companies say UNLIMITED bandwidth and what they mean by unlimited is (they are betting that your site will never become popular).
Most sites have less than a thousand unique visitors a month. Even more staggering is that most of your sites traffic will come from automated software like spam bots, search engines, hackers and content scrapers.
Web hosting companies bet against you creating the next Facebook so they feel comfortable boasting “UNLIMITED” bandwidth. Don’t believe the hype of “UNLIMITED” and go in with the understanding that, at least on shared hosting, there’s a limit to the unlimited.
Make certain you read the fine print when it comes to serving your content to site visitors. This will fall under CPU usage or cycles. They make up rules that impact how much of the server’s CPU your account is allowed to use at any given time. Keep in mind you are on a shared server so that means your site, and in some cases, many others are all running on the same server CPU.
STORAGE SPACE
Storage space has become cheaper than ever. That is why web hosting companies can offer you a lot of storage for a small amount of money. If you read the fine print, most web hosting companies will specify what type of content you can store on their servers. Generally, shared web hosting companies do not want you to store audio or video files on their servers. A couple of things that impact this are the fact that they don’t want you to overload their CPU and you could be a pirate. Yes, you are presumed guilty until you can prove yourself innocent.
SERVICE
Getting a feel for the service a company will provide before you are actually a client is a tough task. You can search the internet, ask friends and listen to other people you trust. One thing I have done is email the company directly with questions and try to get a feel for the speed in which they respond, and the overall tone of their response. Some companies will email you back and once you read the email, it’s clear to see that they did not thoroughly read your message. This should be an instant red flag. Do not waste your money on companies who won’t take the time to listen to your concerns.
RELIABILITY
Reliability is another question that will be hard for you to answer until you are confronted with an outage. Many web hosts have short outages from time to time but your site should not be down more than it is up. Some web hosting companies boast a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Not sure how you would be able to prove or disprove this due to the nature of the claim. Do they count uptime by the minute, hour, day, year or lifetime of your account? Your guess would be as good as mine. Do your research, talk to people and email these companies to get a sense of a company’s reliability.
Make sure you do some research before signing up with a web hosting company who you will be stuck with for months or even years.
I have listed a couple of shared hosting solutions below that I have recently started using and am having success with.
Thanks for reading my “How To Choose A Web Host” post.
Hank Davis
