What do you know about web hosting? If the answer is ‘nothing’, it’s time to learn. It might seem confusing or vague when you think about your web site “sitting” on a server in some far-away server room somewhere, but understanding web hosting is critical if you intend to publish a website. Keep reading to find tips which will help you select the right web host for your site.
Evaluate the security features of a hosting company, as well as their safety features. You need to ensure that they have a strict policy that will protect your site (and your information) from hackers or other online dangers. Good hosts constantly back up servers.
Make sure that your hosting provider is good at communicating with its customers. Your web host should give you ample warning about updates, maintenance, and planned downtime. They should want to interact with you. Make sure you have a way to stay in contact.
Before you choose a plan for hosting, go over their website carefully. A good website should be filled with resources on the different features you will have to learn to use to optimize your site. You should also ask if clients have access to exclusive resources, as well.
Choose a web hosting service that has redundancy, or multiple ways to connect to the Internet. A single connected web host can increase the likelihood of your web site being down. Speak with the company and confirm that they have redundant connections and that every single one has a decent level of bandwidth for ensuring that your website will stay online despite any problems that may occur on their end.
Don’t choose a host simply because they are cheap. A good deal might mean bad service, and less money in the long run! Chances are high that you will end up sacrificing either quality or support, both of which are essentials in any web hosting company.
Have a peek at the control panel your potential hosts offer before you sign up. The host should provide documentation which is publicly available before you become a customer. Don’t sign up with a service if the control panel seems too hard for you to learn. Find another service that has simpler controls.
Check out web hosting directories. This will give you a listing of everything that’s available and you will be easily able to sort out the ones that are over priced or don’t offer what you need. After it is narrowed down, you can then focus on specific prices and options for the ones that you have chosen to compare.
Find out the kind of servers used by a hosting company. Some companies give you FTP-based access that can be confusing and complex if you are not used to using it, while others use a simplified control panel that you can access through a web interface. Choosing a control panel that you access through the web is also more suited to simpler sites. If you use a series of complex pages, you may need to go with one of the more technical access options.
Reading reviews is a great way to glean perspectives of various web hosts. Never take promises at face value, and always seek feedback from current clients.
Think twice about going with a free web hosting provider. Although it may look like a great price now, later on when your needs grow it might not be right for you. Your free host won’t be able to grow with your needs as your website gets bigger and traffic picks up. Switching web providers can be a hassle, so going with a free host in the beginning can cost you a lot of problems in the end.
Look into outage frequency before you settle on a hosting company, and do not allow a company to make excuses for frequent outages. There are hosting providers out there that will blame electrical outages or other things for insufficient up time, but there are great companies that will always keep your site up and running. Regardless of what good things you’ve heard about a web hosting company, don’t sign up if it makes excuses for outages.
Maintain a strong presence on a forum for hosting, to ensure you have proper knowledge concerning your hosting company. For example, check the forum as soon as your web host goes down to find out if other hosts are experiencing problems as well. You can also find out how quickly outages are being addressed by participating in these types of forums. Be sure to inform forum members if you experience an outage that lasts 24 hours or more. Other participants can help you figure out why the outage is occurring. If it is because your web host isn’t providing proper service, you are helping others by letting them know what host you use.
At the very least, you should consult all the online reviews you can find about the web host before you make a decision. Customers like to post comments about online services that are either really good or really bad. Read plenty of reviews and choose a company that has a long history of good service.
If you want to hang onto your domain name for the long haul, do not register it through your web host. What you may not know is that you can lose your domain name if something happens to that web hosting company. Pick a different company so that you have ownership of the name.
Check out the web hosts maintenance schedule. Ideally, maintenance that is scheduled should only be scheduled for once every thirty days. This can limit your downtime if you use this company.
The introductory paragraph mentioned that many website designers and owners don’t know much about web hosting the first time they do a website. Having read through this article, you should have a much better idea about how web hosting works and what it can do for you. Remember the information that you learned here and apply it to your own web hosting search, to ensure everything goes well.