Four Basic Steps to Choosing a Web Host

Before choosing a hosting provider for your website, you need to do some basic research to help you make a wise choice. Learning a provider's cost, reliability, support, and history will go a long way towards helping you make this important decision. A host's technical forums often provide a wealth of information about the company's cost, support, and reliability, as well as their reputation for customer support.

1. Cost

Everyone wants a good deal on web hosting service. Nobody likes to think that they paid too much and got too little in return. But basing your entire decision on a provider's price can cost you in the long term. This is not to say that inexpensive providers are incapable of giving you the support you need. There are even free hosting sites that can work just fine for hosting a personal web page or blog. But for reasons of security, backup provisions, virus squelching, and uptime, it can be a wise investment to pay more and get peace of mind, particularly if you will be handling credit cards or other personal information about your customers.

2. Reliability

Do a quick web search on the names of web hosting companies that you are considering. Chances are, if they are big, or if they've been around awhile, someone has posted a rant about a problem they had. This should not disqualify a particular provider; sometimes customers have unrealistic expectations about how much a particular provider can do. But you should take the time to read what others say about a host you're considering. If a host has an online technical forum, you can scroll through it to get some idea about the kind of technical problems they have, and how eager they are to fix those problems.

3. Support

If you can't get through to a provider online or over a phone when you are trying to select one provider over another, think how frustrated you will be when it's a weekend night and your site has crashed, and you can't get through to customer support. This is a crucial part of the relationship between you and your web host. Again, discussions on a company's online forums can help you determine whether a particular company goes out of its way to help its customers.

4. History

You can do a simple "whois" search on a provider's website that will let you know how long a host has been in business. A quick Google search on "whois wiki" will direct you on how to do this. This does not mean that you should only trust a company that has been around a long time. Though longevity does indicate a certain level of quality, often newer companies try to stand out from the herd by emphasizing superior customer service.

If you do some research before choosing your web host, you can often avoid mistakes made by others who rushed into a decision. Four key indicators of a hosting service's "fit" for your needs are cost, reliability, customer support, and history. If nothing else, this information will help you whittle down the huge number of providers out there to something manageable before doing further research.