Choosing the Right Host for Your Site When choosing a host for your website, there are both subjective and objective aspects to consider. Many of the objective aspects are covered in the hundreds of articles that have already been written, but less often will you find the subjective aspects; those that are driven more by feelings and perception or your specialized needs.
There are many characteristics that you should generally expect all web hosts to include:
1. High Availability: All the features in the world are worthless, if your site is not available when your visitors try to access it. This incorporates many different components. Do they use quality servers and hardware? Do they have multiple redundant connections to the Internet? Do they have a lifecycle management program in place to ensure that you are not being hosted on a server built in 1987? (Most data centers plan for servers to have a 3 – 4 year lifecycle.)
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How to Find the Right Host for Your Web SiteDeveloping a professional web presence requires a comprehensive strategy to ensure success. The most important element to the overall success of your website is your hosting service. Your hosting service cannot guarantee your site will succeed, but it can surely devastate it. No matter what applications you use (streaming video, audio, discussion forums, etc.) or plug-ins (Flash and Shockwave), if your visitors cannot load your site within a few seconds your finished. Recent studies have shown that you only have 20 seconds to grab your visitor's attention. The longer it takes your site to go from download-to-live, the less time you have to retain your visitors. Remember, your competition is only one click away. The best way to choose a web hosting company is to follow these six suggestions. Remember, selecting the right web hosting company is vital to your success on the Internet.
Determine how much disk storage space and how much monthly data transfer your site requires? Disk storage space refers to the amount of server space allocated to your account. The files that make up your website are stored in your storage space. These files include your html files, audio/video, graphics, etc. The data transfer is how much data your site transmits each month. Generally, data transfer includes any outbound traffic from your site, with the exception of e-mails. In general an average HIT is about 10K. This would mean that a monthly data transfer account of 2.0 Gigabyte would allow approximately 200,000 hits. Remember, if your data transfer rate is higher than the amount allocated by your hosting company you will have to pay for any extra data transfer.
How should you Host? There are three different ways to host your site. The three ways are shared hosting, dedicated hosting and colocated hosting. Shared hosting means that your site is positioned among other "websites" on a single machine. This type of hosting is usually adequate for the majority of "text-n-gif" sites. Dedicated hosting refers to your own dedicated machine. As you add more interactive elements to your site, you may want to consider a dedicated host. The final is a colocated server. You own the server, but it is located in your host's facility. You chose the bandwidth and your host provides the access.
How Much Technical Support do you Need? Do you need 24/7 live technical support or do you only work on your website during business hours? If you only work on your site during business hours, you probably don't need 24/7 technical support, so why pay for it. However, you need to determine how much on-demand support you need for your site.
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