Article: Choosing a Web Hosting Company

What to look for in a web hosting company

Now that you have your domain name registered and your website developed, it's time to find the right company to host your site. But you ask, how do I choose one when there are thousands of them out there? Well, that all depends on your needs.

How much should you pay?

Surprisingly, it does not cost very much to have a web site hosted these days. There are many hosting packages under $20/month that are very adequate for most businesses to start out with. Once you start adding shopping carts, credit card processing, streaming video/audio, databases, etc., the costs obviously go up. And of course, if your website becomes extremely popular and starts to get thousands of visitors per day, you'll have to pay for the extra bandwidth and in some cases, get a dedicated server.

Many hosting companies will allow you to upgrade your account if the need arises so make sure that this option is available, especially if you commit to any long-term contracts.

Some web hosting companies will have additional costs such as set up costs, or will only offer their low advertised price if you commit for a long period of time. As with anything in life, you should always read the fine print.

How much bandwidth and disk space do I really need?

Most hosting companies will advertise large amounts of bandwidth and disk space for a very low price. How can they afford to do that you ask? Well, experience shows that most websites do not even come close to using up the allotted bandwidth and space so it's merely an advertising gimmick. A simple website with a few dozen images will need at most 50MB of disk space and unless you're getting thousands of visitors per day, 2-5GB/month transfer rate is more than enough.

Again, it's important to make sure your hosting company allows room for growth.

Virtual server or Dedicated server?

The majority of websites on the net today are hosted on Virtual servers. Many hosting companies set up virtual servers so that they can host hundreds and even thousands of sites on one server. The good part for you and your wallet is that they are able to provide hosting at a very low cost.

When a website becomes very popular, it might be a good idea to consider a dedicated server, especially if the site is bringing in revenue. On a dedicated server, only one website is hosted with one IP address. The site's webmaster usually has total control of the server.

What's all this PHP, CGI, ASP, PERL, SQL stuff?

PHP, ASP, JSP, and PERL are technologies that allow web developers to build dynamic web pages, while CGI is a standard that allows web servers to interface with executable applications. If you want to include forms on your site, CGI and one of the above technologies is a must.

Practically all hosting companies offer PHP and PERL, since they are open source programming languages and quite popular. ASP and JSP, although not always offered with many packages, are more robust and gaining in popularity.

If you are planning to keep track of your customers, use a shopping cart, or store and retrieve large amounts of data, then you will need a database. MySQL is a great open-source database program which is typically available in most hosting packages.

If someone else is designing and/or maintaining your website, it's a good a idea to ask them which of the above they have most experience with.

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