How to Get the Most out of Your Web Hosting Provider

It Pays To Shop For The Best Web Hosting Provider

There are hundreds of different web hosting providers out there, and they all offer different kinds of services.  That makes it confusing to find a web hosting provider that is right for you, so how do you do it?  The first temptation is to go by the lowest price, but six months later, that may leave you sending angry emails to customer service and calling your bank to stop payments.  It is better to take your time, because there is a lot of criteria to sort through, and you don’t want to make any mistakes if you rely on your website to conduct business with the rest of the world.

The first thing to look at when you are considering a web hosting provider is to look at the size of the company. 

Hosting companies, especially cheap hosting companies, come in every size, ranging from three guys in a basement to huge conglomerates with overseas customer service departments and 1-800 numbers.  They both have their pluses and minuses, but there are a few key things to look at with each type of company.

Smaller companies tend to have the best customer service. 

They may not have a 1-800 number for you to call, but you will usually get someone who will take personal care with your technical problems.  They may even take the time to help you learn new software.  However, be prepared to be on the phone more often, because these companies often lease their data centers, so you will definitely experience more downtime.  As well, some of the low cost web hosting companies rely solely on monthly fees from their customers, so if the sales drop off, so does the service.  So much so, that many of these companies wind up going bankrupt, or selling out to large corporations like Endurance International, a Massachusetts holding company known for buying up these companies and then dismantling them.

Smaller hosting companies also rely heavily on a Linux operating system to save money. 

Linux based web hosting is the most common type of hosting to find because the Linux operating system is the cheapest, most stable and most secure platform for website development.  Linux is widely distributed for little or no cost because it is General Public License Software, and it is free to get updates.  However, if you want to use Dreamweaver the company may give you Dreamweaver extensions to work with, but since Dreamweaver is really an Adobe product; the results vary when using it with specific Linux operating systems. 

To save money on software, these home-grown companies will also create their own control panel, which also has varying degrees of success.  Instead, look for companies that use the cPanel.  This is licensed software and an easy-to-use icon-based interface for website administration.   So if you are planning on going with a smaller web hosting provider, make sure that they have the cPanel, especially if you have never managed your own web site before. 

Larger web hosting providers have their own set of concerns, the first being customer service.  

Even though it is advertised as 24/7, don’t expect customer service at a larger company to do anything other than simple tech or billing requests.  One thing about a larger company is that you absolutely have to have a working knowledge of coding and software in order to be able to take advantage of the lower prices and better packages that they offer.  In other words, don’t sign up for incredible amounts of software if you don’t know how to use it. 

At the same time, most of these larger companies have their own their own data centers, so you won’t have as many technical errors or downtime to complain about.  As well, if you can learn on your own, these larger, budget web hosting companies offer a lot more tutorials and forums on web site development. Lastly, if your website gets too big for shared hosting, larger companies will let you trade up to a dedicated or virtual hosting plan for free.  

These are just some of the things to consider and expect from any web hosting provider. 

The most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter how low the price is if the cheap web hosting package you sign up for doesn’t work for your particular situation.  Since we’re only talking about five dollars a month more in the case of shared hosting, go ahead and pay the extra money if it will make your website run less hassle-free.              

See also: writeyourselfrich.net