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How to choose a web hosting company?

When you browse and surf the internet, you come across millions of websites for a particular keyword(s) / search on Google. Usually one gets confused what to click and where to go.

Usually the internet users like and trust the websites coming on page one of Google, as these are most optimized sites providing highly useful contents to people. This is equally true for website hosting companies.

Internet is flooded with such service providers. Every tom and dick is now running a web hosting company claiming to be highly reliable and all that.

But you as a client must check certain important things before you choose your web host for hosting your website.

1. Check online credibility of web host to find out how much reliable they are.

There are real customers who post comments about web hosting service providers both positive and negative. Carefully read what people say and why. People love to share their good and bitter experience and publish a recommendation or an alert.

You will also come to know how many people are using a particular web host. Check out them on social sites with their latest performance.

2. Find out there server up time.

Make an online search and check web hosting blog to see what people post there. This is crucial for your website or else you will face frequent website down times and failure of your internet business.

3. Check online demos provided by web hosts for their clients to test their services.

Doing this you will not only get some idea of server up time but also you may be able to test resources on a hosting platform to decide as to whether the host is suitable for your website needs.

4. Check their online customer support.

This is very important in difficult times when you need them. If the support is not available at the time of need, you will simply beat your head against the wall and repent for you act on choosing the host.

This really gives pain when you pay but did not get better value in return for your hard earned money. The support must be immediate and responsive with quality problem resolution.

5. Price structure is also carrying significance.

You should not pay more for less. You can compare price list for a particular hosting service by visiting many hosts available around you and see what is genuine and what suits you.

6. Compatibility

Find out if the web hosting service provider is compatible for your needs to host a particular site. For example, if you have to design a php site, hosting must be Linux and if asp site, then windows platform is recommended.

Also confirm as to whether application hosting is being supported or not. If yes, one thing more to check is to find out if WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc. Softwares are inbuilt with the hosting platform.

If it is there, it is good news as with simple clicks you can install all the scripts without assistance of a programmer hence saving on this front.

As already said, if you are using Php language / Script to design the website you have to order for Php Hosting also called Linux Hosting.

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a scripting language on server side, used to develop the dynamic Websites. There is a user-site interaction on such Websites.

So that on each page the visitor can see specially the customized information. PHP is open source language used on Linux Hosting Platform. It is also a great substitute to ASP technology. ASP stands for Active Server pages widely used on Windows Platform.

As also said for Asp language / script, you have to order for Asp Hosting also called Windows Hosting. Do ask your web host about your requirement before making a deal with them.

ASP files are basically HTML pages with entrenched scripts and make it possible and easier for Web developers to develop Apps. These scripts have no language bar.

7. Check Requirement of Email Ids

Decide how many email id’s you require for your site and twice check if hosting provider offers unlimited emails which is flexible option for you as you can do anything without any resource restriction.

Some hosting companies provide a few email accounts with the hosting account and then charge more for more accounts. So always look for unlimited emails option before you buy hosting.

8. Company’s reputation and popularity is also important.

Online search will reply your all related queries.

9. Security

Security is another issue which should never be compromised. Ask your web host what security they provide to their customers to safeguard their websites.

If you have to get more security, investing in this regard is always encouraged.

10. Carefully decide what space and bandwidth you need.

Do you need a shared hosting account or VPS or dedicated one? Make an assessment what would be the traffic you site may experience and decide accordingly.

Unlimited hosting is a myth and a marketing tool. There is nothing like an unlimited hosting, everything is restricted. You need to read carefully what you are exactly buying at what cost.

11. Speed is another aspect of a web host.

The speed of web host must be fast so that your visitors load site fast without any delay and waiting.

People online do not want to wait and switch to another website if the site loads slow.

12. Server Backup

Server backup is another area of importance to discuss and pay attention to. The web host should provide daily backups so that if your server crashes, the account can be easily restored with a few clicks.

Features of a Good Web Hosting Company

A good web hosting company is always reliable and has a 99.99% server up time, 24×7 award winning worldwide customer support. The web host must provide support to its customers via email, live chat and telephone to achieve 100% customer satisfaction. The hosting company should be having fast data transfer speed, server backup and server security. Other features include good online reputation, video tutorials, unconditional money back guarantee and a reasonable price structure with latest and unlimited features loaded on the hosting platform.

How to Differentiate a Good Web Host From a Bad One/Scam?

There are thousands of web hosts running on the internet. So please try to identify whether a host is genuine or a scam. I have already discussed this, a few points again to focus on.

1- Check out the online credibility of the web host as outlined above. But if the company/site is new and it has no online credibility yet what to do then?

Simple find out their address and phone number and talk to them. Usually genuine sites always receive phones and talk politely.

2- Check whether there is an address and phone number mentioned on the website. For a legal and genuine web host, it is always there.

3- Ask people in discussion forums about the host.

4- Apply your common sense how to verify genuineness of a site.

Spend some time online to find out the credibility of a web host.

Check history of a web host online. Customers praise a web host if it is good and genuine, apart from others and ahead in the crowd. They post their comments online on forums and other places.

If a web host is not good and deceiving its customers, the customers leave no opportunity to defame them by posting their stories across the internet on discussion forums and lodge complaints online.

You will come to know everything and it will later-on become easy for you to pick a web hosting company for your online business.

A web hosting company should be having its own secure and stable web servers with matchless customer support.

A web hosting company should be honest in its approach and come up to the expectations of its clients.

It is true that only 5% people make their internet business successful and rest 95% simply waste their time and money.

Your online success is sure if your web host company is genuine and reliable with honest administrator and technically skilled staff.

Why is Customer Support Important For a Web Hosting Company?

A successful online business is being run on internet round the clock without any interruption. If you feel any problem in the hosting, you are supposed to contact the service provider immediately and if you won’t get timely response, your online business will certainly suffer.

For example, if your website is down due to crashing of servers, the customers will try to visit your website but it will not get downloaded on their screens. So you are losing customers besides creating a bad impression about your business.

As such, you need the technical customer support immediately, so that the problem is rectified in least amount of time to save your business and online credibility.

A web host should be having adequate staff to cope up with any technical issue that can arise any time during the day. You should now have got fairly a good idea of “How to choose a web hosting company?”