The 10 Golden Rules You Must Consider When Choosing A Web Host

Almost every web host out there is trying to tell you that they’re the best, and they can offer you everything you need at the very best price, but as you’d know that simply isn’t true. So how do you tell the difference between a good and not so good host, which extra services do you really need and which are just a waste of money?

To make it easier, here are a few simple rules to go by when choosing your website host to try and make sure you get one that suits your needs.

1. Avoid free web hosting companies.  
   1. More often than not their service is free so they can place their advertisements on your site.
   2. They tend to have rather poor server uptime.
   3. There’s a reasonably good chance that in 6 months time they might disappear along with all your website files!
   4. They may not allow you to have your own domain name which won’t be very professional looking. Your web address might be http://myshop.freewebsitehost.com.
2. Don’t consider any host that can’t offer at least 99.9% server uptime. 99.8% uptime isn’t too bad either, but when you consider there are so many reasonably priced hosting companies out there that can offer at least 99.9% or 100% uptime why would you bother paying the same for even less uptime?

3. Be aware of setup fees. Some hosting companies like to charge an account setup fee with your first month’s hosting. Knowing what it takes to setup a new hosting account I don’t 100% agree with this & will run a mile when I see a company charging one.

   They often charge it so if people cancel after 1 month they have still made a reasonable amount of money, but I figure if they’re offering an excellent service then most people shouldn’t be cancelling very quickly so it makes me a little suspicious of their hosting quality. However, if they can offer everything else you want and seem ok, then give them a try.

4. Ample bandwidth allowance. As I mentioned before, if you go over your bandwidth allowance for the month, the hosting company will stop displaying your site for the rest of the month. You need to make sure that you account either allows for ample bandwidth for starters or will easily allow you to upgrade when necessary. The more pictures and videos your site has on it, the more bandwidth it will use.

   To gain an idea of how much bandwidth you might need, one of my sites which has over 10,000 visitors a month uses around 5GB/month bandwidth. A smaller one that was only started at the beginning of last month received 400 visitors last month and used about 115MB of bandwidth (1024MB make up 1GB).

5. Adequate disc space. A couple of hundred MB of disc space should be more than ample to last most websites a couple of years. Keep in mind that the more images you have on your site, the more disc space you’ll need to store them.

   Personally I wouldn’t consider a hosting plan that offered less than 100MB disc space as that’s cutting things a bit too close in my opinion – the amount of disc space your site uses increases over time, not just from files you add but from emails you’ve received, many of which you may not want to delete (part of business records).

6. Shared or private SSL (Secure Socket Layer). An SSL is essential for ecommerce sites. SSL encrypts confidential data such as credit card numbers & passwords that people may enter on your site.
7. Ample email accounts. When you create your website, you can also make your own email accounts which can be named whatever you want – you can have yourname@mydomainname.com, sales@mydomainname.com, or anything you like. Some hosting accounts limit the number of email accounts you can create, while others don’t. Look for a web host that will let you create at least 5 (if not unlimited) email accounts for your site.

8. MySQL Databases. MySQL databases are used by various software/scripts that you may have running on your site to store data in a way they can easily retrieve. Databases are used by blogging platforms (WordPress etc.), shopping cart scripts, CMS scripts (Drupal, Joomla etc.), forums & much more.

   As with the email accounts, some hosting companies limit the amount of MySQL databases you can create on your account, or make you pay extra if you want more. I suggest you look for a hosting company that allows for at least 2 or 3 MySQL databases, if not unlimited.

9. Fantastico. While not essential, Fantastico sure makes life a lot easier so it’s probably worth looking for a host that supplies it. Fantastico is a collection of 52+ free scripts (classified ads, blogs, forums, shopping carts, CMSs, photo galleries & more) that enables you to install any one of the scripts on your website at the click of a mouse without any programming knowledge.
10. Avoid contracts if possible. Some hosting companies want you to sign up for a 6 or 12 month contract. Having done that myself in the past, I wouldn’t recommend it. Like with the setup fee, if they offer a good quality service for a reasonable price they shouldn’t have any trouble keeping clients long term.