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FACTORS
TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A WEB HOSTING SERVICE PROVIDER
By
NuStreams.com
Choosing a web host for your business online will be
one of the most crucial decisions that you’ll be making. Bear in
mind that your whole business will be running on this one
“service”. It is ultimately the crucial backbone for any online
business therefore the e–entrepreneur will have to make his/her
decision very carefully. Choosing a web host is not anything like
getting office furniture for your business, whereby if you don’t
happen to like what you’ve bought you can return the furniture
back to its manufacturer. The moment you are committed to one
particular company, it will be extremely time-consuming & costly
to move to another. So lets get right down to how to choose the
ideal “service” for your business:
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Price
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Customer service and support
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Response from existing customers
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Reliability and speed of servers
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Features of the hosting service
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Company background & history
Price
Look for affordable yet feature rich services.
Don’t go for over-priced ones. There are hundreds of them out
there.
Customer service and support
Go for hosts that offer 24 hours service and
support. You’ll never know when disaster strikes. This way
you’ll be sure that there’ll always be someone to assist/depend
on at anytime. Try writing and asking them questions
(technical/non-technical) and see how responsive and knowledgeable
they are. These will be the same people you’ll be asking for help
when you need them, so make sure their service meets your highest
expectations.
Response From Existing Customers
Write to their existing customers and ask them
exactly what you want to know about the services that they have been
given so far. It’s the best resource you’ll ever get. Also, do
lookout for the type of customers that has signed on with the
company. If you’re running a business-type of site, go for hosting
companies which caters for such a market.
Reliability and speed of servers
Regular back up of your site data
Make sure the company offers regular back up for
your data. This helps a whole lot when there’s a
network/power/systems failure. You won’t want all your precious
database & information to be gone during such a mishap, do you?
Connection speed & bandwidth management
If possible, go for connection speeds of nothing
less than a T1 connection. You will obviously want them to have a
fast connection to the Internet, right? Bandwidth management used by
the company should ideally be not more than 50% of its bandwidth
(only applies to companies hosting using a shared server). Details
of what a shared server is listed below. They should also have more
than one connection to the Internet, in case the other one goes
down.
Sideline
– generally web hosting companies will provide a particular
bandwidth size for a website to transfer information in and out to
its site visitors. Since shared servers are offering hosting
services to several websites all at the same time, bandwidth
management is needed so that a particularly heavy traffic site will
not hog up the bandwidth needed by other sites on its server. If no
proper bandwidth management is in place, the other sites on the
particular shared server will experience very slow loading times for
their pages.
Backup power supply
They must have a UPS system (uninterruptible power
supply system). This acts as a backup power generator when a power
failure happens.
Features of the hosting service
Compatibility with software
Are the software and skills that you’re using
compatible with the ones of the host’s server, support services,
software, etc. If,
for instance, you are used to working in a Unix environment, then it
probably makes little sense to choose an NT host – not changed
yet, to change.
Range of services/features
Your
business needs will never remain constant, they will always change.
When choosing a host, always think of what you might potentially
need in your business hosting requirements and whether the hosting
company will be able to accommodate those needs.
Dedicated or shared server
There are 2 types of servers; a dedicated or a
shared server. A dedicated server is a server which only hosts for 1
particular site (ie. One server which is “dedicated” to one site
only). This is where you rent your own dedicated server from a hosting provider. The
hosting provider is responsible for buying the necessary hardware,
installing the appropriate software and maintaining the server. Dedicated
servers are mostly used by businesses which requires very high
speed and significant data transfer needs, high level of traffic and
need for security, specialized software, an interactive site, a
limited technical staff to handle the maintenance of an in-house
server, or even the user wishes to
run their own customized software and applications rather than the
standard ones supplied by the host.
A shared server is one that is shared between many other
websites. All of the other web sites on the shared server
will be using the same network connection, the same hardware
resources and the same software. The website owner will only be
responsible for managing the design and content of the Web site.
Shared servers are more suited for websites featuring simple company
profiles, brochures, information, bulletin boards, etc; pretty much
running basic e-commerce functions. In the case of small business owners, it would be more
practical to start off with a shared server, later on upgrading to a
dedicated server as business grows. One of the most feature rich
shared servers around is HostSave.
Their prices are one of the lowest in the market, yet the features
that you get are only available in most higher end web-hosting
providers. To learn more about their services, click
here.
Company background & history
Always check out the company background &
history. It is best (but not always) to go for companies, which has
a strong & solid background. The management team plays a more
important role in this aspect.
Through our own intensive research, we have opted to
go for HostSave hosting services. To have a full review of their services, click
here.
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